1 



The Religion of 
To-morrow 



i 



The Religion of 
To-morrow 

By 

FRANK CRANE 



**LO, I AM WITH YOU ALWAY 

Mattheiv^ xxii, 20 




HERBERT S. STONE isf COMPANY 

CHICAGO & NEW YORK 

MDCCCXCIX 



Library Qf 648gHi« 

Office of \hn 

Regitttr of Copyright!, 



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COPYRIGHT 1899 BY 
HERBERT S. STONE & CO. 



SeCOKD OOPY, 






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//^7 



TABLE OF CONTENTS / 3 2^ 



Page 

CREDO vii 

CHAPTER I. Introduction . . 3 

Religion is the Personal Influence of God. 

CHAPTER II. The Kingdom of Heaven . 23 

The Purpose of God*s Personal Influence is Transforma- 
tion, not Transportation. 

CHAPTER III. Dynamics . . .53 

The Power of Religion Consists, not in Rewards and 
Punishments, but in God*s Personal Influence. 

CHAPTER IV. Eternal Life . . 81 

Life Influenced by God's Personality Becomes Eternal in 
Quality. 

:HAPI£R v. The Shadow of the Cross ioi 

The Central Doctrine of Christianity is not Based upon 
the Cross, but upon the Resurrection, and Salvation is 
not the Legal Consequence of the Dead Christ's Deed, 
but the Present Effect of the Living Christ's Imma- 
nence, Made Possible by His Death. 

CHAPTER VI. Definitions . . .129 

Scriptural Terms for the Operation of Religion are Ex- 
plainable only by Assuming It to be God's Personal 
Influence. 

CHAPTER VII. The Light from the Cross 161 

The Crucifixion is not the Atonement ; It is but a Part 
^ of the Atonement, and It or Any Scheme or Doctrine of 

It is Impotent unless It be Vitalized and Completed by 
the Present Personal Influence of God. 



/ 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 
CHAPTER VIII. The Balance of Doctrine 217 

To View Religion as God's Personal Influence Gives 
Coherency to Conflicting Doctrines, to Contradictory 
Passages of Scripture, and to Opposing Elements in Hu- 
man Nature. 

CHAPTER IX. The Incarnation . . 237 

The Personal Influence of God is Transforming the 
World as a Power of Social Evolution, not as a Rule of 
Social Segregation. 

CHAPTER X. The Leaven . . .267 

The Personal Influence of God is the Propagating Power 
of Christianity. 

CHAPTER XI. Hell . . . .293 

The Bible was not Given to Reveal ** Last Things " 
nor Future Events ; not to Gratify Curiosity, but to 
Reveal the Laws of God's Personal Influence. 



CHAPTER XII. Life in the Heavens 
God's Personal Influence upon His Eternal Sons. 



331 



APPENDIX 



361 



CREDO 

**You would better,** said a learned friend, 
who had examined the manuscript of this 
essay, **add a succinct statement of your 
creed, so that the reader may not be led by 
his own inferences to locate you theologically 
where you do not belong." 

Hence: 

I believe in the Trinity, in the Atonement, 
in Salvation through Faith, in Heaven, in 
Hell, in the Church, and in all the other doc- 
trines of the historic creeds of Protestantism. 
But I believe that the common notions of 
these doctrines contain error. This error is 
an inheritance from the theology of the Roman 
Church, which substituted a complicated sys- 
tem of divine machinery to do what can only 
be done by the divine personality. The 
thought of this age is discovering the utter 
untenability of mediaeval dogmatism, and is 
swinging back to that view which was held by 
the apostles and the Greek fathers. The 
theory, which applied to all our Christian 
tenets will most surely be a touchstone to 
separate the true from the false, the artificial 

vii 



CREDO 

from the real, is the theory which in these 
places is set forth; to wit, that Religion is 
the Personal Influence of God. 

The views of this essay are such as can be 
held by a member of any of the principal 
evangelical denominations. The author is, 
and hopes to remain, a church member. He 
seeks not to destroy but to fulfill, to fill Chris- 
tian concepts fuller of Christ's own meaning. 
This is no attempt to create a new-fangled 
Gospel. This volume pretends not to tell 
men something they do not know, but it seeks 
to give voice to what the common people 
do already think and believe. It aims to be 
an interpretation of present-day evangelical 
thought, not the heralding of a new cult. 



viil 



CHAPTER I 

THEME 
Religion is the Personal Influence of God 



"By the term 'religion,* I shall mean any theory of 
personal agency in the universe, belief in which is 
strong enough in any degree to influence conduct. 
No term has been used more loosely of late years, or 
in a greater variety of meanings. Of course anybody 
may use it in any sense he pleases, provided he 
defines exactly in what sense he does so. The above 
seems to be most in accordance with traditional 
usage."— George John Romanes, Thoughts on Re- 
ligion, p. 113. 



CHAPTER I 

The proposition this book seeks to substan- 
tiate is that religion is the personal influence 
of God. At first glance that statement may 
not appear to mean very much; yet as we 
reflect upon it, as we apply it to all of our 
common stock of the doctrines of Christian- 
ity, it will be found to have a startling and 
far-reaching effect. As we bring this one idea 
to bear upon our thought about heaven, 
hell, salvation, the atonement, faith, and so 
on, we discover that it acts upon them very 
much as our knowledge of the law of gravita- 
tion acts upon our view of the many diverse 
and conflicting phenomena of matter. The 
movement of the planets, the differing weights 
of substances, and a hundred other facts of 
nature were but curious things, ascribed by 
some to magic and demons, and explained by 
others by ingenious shifts and contrivances, 
like the cycles and epicycles of the Ptolemaic 
system, until the all-regulating law of gravita- 
tion was announced ; and then we perceived 
that those things which once we attributed to 
whim and mystery are all in harmony and all 

3 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

unified by one law. That religion is the per- 
sonal influence of the immanent God, I con- 
ceive to be the central, all-ordering, and all- 
disposing idea that harmonizes, adjusts, and 
makes plain and reasonable the entire scheme 
of Christian thought, thus occupying in theol- 
ogy a position somewhat similar to the position 
occupied by the law of gravitation in physics.* 
And religion is nothing but the personal 
influence of God. All of its operations, 
effects, and obligations are but phases of that 
influence. God*s influence is of the same kind 
as that of man. It differs in degree. As one 
man affects another, so the person of God 
affects men. This is a simple, comprehen- 
sible thought. 



* The exactness of this definition may be questioned; but I find 
it impossible to discover in the dictionaries or elsewhere a dis- 
tinct and accurate meaning for the word '* religion." It is used 
loosely, according to the view points of respective writers to mean 
(i) a recognition of and allegiance to a superhuman poA\er, (2) a 
feeling of awe toward Deity, (3) a system of faith and worship, 
(4) the practice of sacred rites, and so on. Is it, then, a subjective 
human emotion, conviction, or practice; or is it an objective im- 
pulse working upon man from above? It seems to be a general 
term applied to various phases of man's relation to Deity, and is 
used suDJectively or objectively, according to one's notion of 
divine things. When a positivist speaks of ** the religion of hu- 
manity," he takes the extreme subjective point of view, regarding 
religion as a phase of mere human experience; while in this writ- 
ing religion is conceived of objectively, as an influence constantly 
emanatmg from the immanent God. For one to say that this 
definition is incorrect, because religion is properly subjective 
wholly, will be equivalent to saying that I have not proved my 
proposition; and this, of course, he is free to maintam. But it 
will not be fair for him to assume for me a definition which I re- 
pudiate, and then to charge me with a wrong use of terms. Ety- 
mologically, it is certainly as correct to use the word "religion" to 
mean the energy of the divine personality, as it is to use it as is 
done in the phrases of the monastery; such as " to enter religion," 
"her name m religion is Mary Aloysia," "he is a religieux," and 
the like. (See Century Dictionary, under " Religion.") 



THEME 

This idea reconciles our theology to rea- 
son. It gives it intellectual beauty. It 
changes theology from a rude heap of unstable 
stones into a beautiful living temple. It takes 
away from our religion a great part of those 
objectionable tenets at which infidelity has 
leveled its bitterest shafts of ridicule. 

Christianity has made wonderful progress. 
This is the more striking because at the same 
time the intellectual leaders of the age have 
become dissatisfied with its framework of 
creed. It is significant that salvation, regen- 
eration, and the atonement, as facts, are 
to-day more potent than ever before in the 
history of men, while as theories, as explained 
by theologians, they are unsatisfactory to 
many of the most intelligent of our time. 
Over and over again have the common notions 
of almost every tenet of our faith been shown 
to be scientifically illogical ; yet, strange to 
say, this faith remains full of an undeniable 
energy. How shall we explain this paradox? 
The irreligious may say it is merely the 
strength of superstition and primitive fear; 
but that will not do, for our religion is decid- 
edly one of progress, it is vigorous with altru- 
ism, and certainly not inconsistent with intel- 
lectuality. The conservative may say it is 
because our theology is full of divine power, 
the foolishness of God being mightier than 

5 



« 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

the wisdom of man. But it is a question 
whether the foolishness in question is of God 
or of ourselves. 

The true explanation seems to be, that with 
all its covering of traditional absurdities, our 
quasi-mediaeval theology yet contains the 
idea of God. It still brings God to men. 
Thus our religion succeeds in spite of its irra- 
tional forms, not because of them. Redu- 
cing all theology to conform to the one dom- 
inant idea of the personal influence of God 
takes away most of the elements that hinder 
its acceptance by the intelligence of mankind, 
and thus makes it a more perfect vehicle of 
God*s influence.^ 

Those thoroughly imbued with mediaeval 
dogma may be, and doubtless hosts of them 
are, truly and really godly. Even when men 
thought the stars were bright specks upon a 
blue cover, the sight of the heavens was 
inspiring. But as the knowledge that those 
glistening points are worlds floating in infinite 
distances only enhances our wonder and awe, 
so the removal of the irrational elements 



* In insisting so strongly upon the divine immanence I do not 
wish to be understood as either denying, or in the least degree 
detracting from, the idea of the divine transcendence. But I con- 
sider the latter to be fully acknowledged and accepted by my 
readers: I take this for granted, and confine myself to the former, 
as being the thought which in these days it is necessary to empha- 
size. All the transcendency of God which is set forth by the 
Augustinian theologians I fully believe in; but, without abating 
our faith in this, it seems to me that it is God's immanence which 
is to be the note of the future. 



THEME 

from theology can only give new power to 
faith. 

Conceiving religion to be God's personality 
influencing us, theology is changed immedi- 
ately from a legal or a statutory science to be 
what may be called, in a way, a natural sci- 
ence. It can be then prosecuted with all the 
certainty and dignity we observe in studying 
sociology, geology, or biology. The apostles 
and prophets are our great teachers ; but they 
are our Newtons and Keplers and Tyndalls, 
and not our Blackstones and Chittys. We are 
in a realm of fact, truth, and nature; not any 
more in the realm of dogma and opinion only. 
The Bible is seen to have worth because it 
**bears witness to the truth," not simply be- 
cause it is the ipse dixit of the inspired men. 
Inspiration, then, becomes a question of 
whether Jesus and His apostles truly set forth 
the facts concerning God's person working 
among men, just as Linnaeus's and Faraday's 
trustworthiness depends on whether they truly 
set forth the facts concerning the methods of 
God's working in matter. Too much impor- 
tance has been given to the questions of the 
historical accuracy, to the secular proofs of 
the authenticity and genuineness of the Scrip- 
tures. These, indeed, are interesting and 
grave matters, but they do not to any degree 
afifect the authority of the volume of sacred 

7 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

writings, which exists now, not primarily to 
inform us of historic happenings, nor to dis- 
close to us the future of the world nor the 
future of the individual soul, but rather to 
bring us in touch with the divine personality 
by unfolding to us the character of God as 
evidenced in His laws, His workings, and His 
plans. The main reason, therefore, for be- 
lieving the Bible to be inspired is not that the 
mass of evidence collected by Christian apolo- 
gists is conclusive that the Book was actually 
written by certain supposed authors, but that, 
even as an anonymous volume, by whomsoever 
it was written, it reveals to the reverent and 
sincere reader the potent force of Deity, a 
force found in no other book. Thus our 
chosen theory relegates the question of in- 
spiration to its true position, and puts it on 
its true basis. 

Conceiving theology to be the science of 
God's personal influence transforms it in some- 
what the same manner in which alchemy is 
changed to chemistry, or astrology to astrono- 
my. There is a definite, undeniable, recog- 
nized force among mankind, just as electricity 
is in matter; this force is manifest in certain 
uniform phenomena, such as an individual 
conscience, in systems of religion, in individ- 
ual, racial, and social ethical movements, in 
those moral sentiments which characterize 

8 



THEME 

what we call Christendom, and in other ways; 
now, we postulate, as a hypothesis, that this 
force is the influence of an invisible, every- 
where present personality, which we call God, 
who is described and set forth by the Bible 
and especially objectivized in Jesus Christ; 
just as we postulate that a certain fclass of 
phenomena are due to a something we call 
electricity. This establishes theology as a 
real science, subjects all its statements to sci- 
entific tests and redeems it from dogmatism. 

Theology these times has come into a kind 
of contempt. It is common for us to speak 
slightingly of doctrinal sermons, and authors 
of religious books have a way of saying they 
do not profess to speak theology, but only 
religion. Now, what is the logical implication 
of this? Clearly, it is that we have abandoned 
the idea that our revelation is an intellectual 
coherency. We recognize it as a true force, 
but are shy of its scheme of thought. This, 
it seems to me, is a serious matter. For cer- 
tainly God's ways with men ought to shine with 
wisdom's light and command the admiration 
of finite minds. There is something wrong 
when we evade theology, or the science of 
religion, as a thing saved from intellectual 
disdain solely because of our reverence for its 
subject matter. 

The reason for this state of things I believe 

9 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

to be, that the advancing intelligence of this 
age has proved absurd a greater part of the 
Augustinian scheme of Latin thought, with- 
out formulating any more rational scheme 
to put in its place. We are in a transitional 
stage, having left Latinism and being yet 
afraid or incompetent to step boldly out into 
the systematic conclusion of our new convic- 
tions. Those who have had this boldness so 
far have been mainly those who have swung 
off as schismatics from the main body of 
Christian believers ; and they have taken each 
some one minor point, and endeavored to con- 
struct a system of thought about it, the 
invariable result being in each instance 
another one-sided heresy. 

And yet what we call heresies are after all 
the best indicators of the drift of the thinking 
in any age. In the days of the Reformation 
the trend of all heresies was chiefly govern- 
mental; that was the day of revolt chiefly 
against the erroneous idea of churchly author- 
ity; doctrinal points were the involved, but 
they were not the fundamental causes. But 
in these later years the character of the 
secessions has changed. A multitude of new 
sects have sprung up, each of which proclaims 
a new doctrine or theory of religion. Univer- 
salism, Unitarianism, Christian Science, and 
even the importation of Buddhism, are char- 

lO 



THEME 

acteristic samples of modern cults. The 
student of the philosophy of religion must view 
all these as different evidences of a common 
force working in human ideas. What is that 
force? It is the growing idea of the imma- 
nence of God. Unitarianism was in the main 
a revolt against the artificiality of the Latin 
view of the atonement; Universalism against 
the artificiality of a scheme of future rewards 
and punishments as motives of conduct; The- 
osophy and Christian Science are bizarre 
expressions of the yearning of the common 
heart for a God usable, knowable, and pres- 
ent. The theory that religion is God's per- 
sonal influence recognizes whatever is true in 
each of these tendencies, and, it would seem, 
satisfies the demand which they polemically 
express. Also, in what we call orthodox cir- 
cles, or the more common body of Christians, 
we have seen a gradual dropping of the old 
methods of preaching. We are leaving off 
the *'good old ways'* of preachment. Didac- 
tic statements of the accepted theories of the 
atonement and vivid pictures of future woe 
and blessedness do not move men as they 
once did. Spurgeon was the last great 
preacher of that class which used this mate- 
rial, and he has left no successor. Mr. Moody, 
the most popular evangelist of this day, dwells 
principally upon God's universal love. The 

II 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

common phrases now are **a personal Sav- 
iour,** '*the life more abundant,'* *'social sal- 
vation," and the like. We urge men to ''ac- 
cept Christ,** rather than to "believe some- 
thing.*' 

Now, I know of no serious attempt delib- 
erately to cast our present-day views into an 
intelligible system. It seems therefore neces- 
sary that theology should be readjusted, that 
it should repudiate distinctly its Roman basis, 
and set itself squarely and unmistakably upon 
a New Testament and ante-Nicene founda- 
tion. In other words, in our systematic doc- 
trine, as well as in our practical preaching, 
we should get back to Jesus and to Paul. It 
is the purpose of this essay to suggest how 
this is to be done; the full details of the sys- 
tem I do not attempt to work out. I have 
confined myself merely to suggesting the true 
starting-point of a reformed theology, and to 
intimating a few of the more salient features of 
our creed that it harmonizes and makes lucid. 

I have refrained from a historical form of 
treating this subject, or from a critical form, 
as my purpose is to speak to the common 
mind, to the laity as well as the clergy, to the 
general common sense of the people rather 
than to the critical experts. As much as pos- 
sible I have also let the argument run upon 
its natural and original course without stop- 

12 



THEME 

ping to quote, to refute, or to commend this 
and that author, for I have always thought 
that this method adds little weight to the 
value of one's own thought, and that it evi- 
dences a desire to exhibit the erudition of the 
author, rather than to assist him in making 
himself understood. And after all, common 
sense is little concerned as to who has said 
this and who that, except when we refer to 
the Scriptures; and, as Montaigne says: 
"There is more ado to interpret interpreta- 
tions than to interpret things, and more books 
upon books than upon all other subjects; 
we do nothing but comment upon one an- 
other/' 

While I think the gist of this writing to be 
original, yet I am fully aware of the extent to 
which I am indebted to what others have 
written. If therefore some pick out this or 
the other thought herein which has been be- 
fore and better said by another, I will enter 
now, in advance, a plea of guilty; only I do 
not believe that the whole matter has ever 
been set together and given the mutual inter- 
dependence that the reader will find in these 
pages. I think myself this essay to be a 
selection of thoughts and doctrines and views 
that are **in the air,'' so to speak, and if there 
be value in it, it is in the arrangement of the 
whole about the one central idea. 

13 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

In dealing with questions in any way per- 
taining to religion, one is upon sacred ground. 
The hopes we have formed concerning those 
we have *Moved long since and lost awhile," 
to say nothing of our own moral surety, are so 
dear that whoever would shatter them for 
mere iconoclastic pleasure would be like a 
wanton boy destroying treasures of art. 
Whether they be true or not, no man should 
lay hands upon the dreams of a life to come 
unless he proposes to make those dreams 
brighter, better, and more conformable to 
reality; if he has only gone so far as to dis- 
cover flaws in them, and has no word that 
shall give them strength, then he should keep 
silence. It is, therefore, not only because I 
think that our common ideas about religion, 
heaven, and salvation are mixed with error, 
but, also, it is because I think I may perhaps 
be of some help in setting them right, that 
this writing is undertaken. The design of 
this work is constructive, not destructive. 
The writer has not merely something to un- 
say; he has something to say, or thinks he 
has. 

Much of the explaining that is done is to 
those who would rather not hear the explana- 
tion; for while beforehand they may have only 
imagined they knew, afterward they are sure 
they do not know. But my trust is that, 

14 



THEME 

because certain things seem so lambent to me, 
I can illuminate them for others. 

Practically, really, I believe the outline of 
theology here indicated is that which is in 
common use by most of the evangelical clergy 
of to-day. They have quietly and of necessity 
taken these views, and are working with them. 
But we still cling, in our text-books and sem- 
inaries, to the old formulas; we still theoreti- 
cally defend the antiquated phrases of the 
Latin church, while actually we have left 
them and have made for ourselves new and 
better. Most of our preaching nowadays is 
of a personal, living, immanent God-Saviour, 
and not of a mechanical plan-salvation. The 
aim of this essay is to indicate a way in which 
our theoretic theology may be made to con- 
form to our factual theology. 

First of all, we are to consider the object 
and scope of God's personal influence; it is to 
change mankind from its sinful condition into 
a condition called '*the kingdom of heaven"; 
not primarily to prepare us for another world, 
but to prepare us for right life here and here- 
after, here or anywhere. (Chapter II.) 

The agency by which this change is to be 
wrought in the race is not rewards and pun- 
ishments, a motive explicitly superseded, but 
God's personal influence. (Chapter III.) 

What is this change that is to take place in 

15 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

us to make us fit citizens of God's kingdom? 
It is a change wrought by the presence of the 
immanent God upon our character. It is the 
same kind of a change, differing only in de- 
gree, that is effected in us when we come 
under the personal influence of a strong, noble 
man, for man is a spirit as well as God is, 
and he is a son of God. The Eternal Life, 
therefore, is God's life, which takes hold of us 
and assimilates us to itself according to the 
known laws of personal influence. (Chapter IV. ) 

God's living personality being the imme- 
diate and chief agency in our regeneration, it 
is not the Christ who died, but the Christ who 
died and rose again, that is the central figure 
of Christian theology. Any system of the- 
ology is deficient which represents salvation as 
consisting in the deliverance of man from the 
consequences of his sin by a dead Christ, 
rather than a deliverance of man from sinful- 
ness itself by the risen and now immanent 
Christ. (Chapter V.) 

The terms used by the new Testament writ- 
ers in describing the operation of the new 
religion are only explainable by the theory of 
that religion being God's personal influence. 
Thus, grace is God's influence, faith our 
reception of it, the Gospel the news of it, and 
righteousness the consequence of it. (Chap- 
ter VI.) 

i6 



THEME 

The atonement, considered as a mere 
scheme, in and by itself, is of no avail to us, 
except as a sort of superstitious allaying of 
the fear of punishment. We are saved by 
God Himself; the death of Jesus Christ was 
the supreme revelation of the character of 
God; so vital is that conception of God which 
we only get by Christ's death that Jewish 
ritualism for centuries had been preparing the 
mind of the world to understand it; the Cross 
thus becomes the great sign and vehicle of the 
personal influence of God upon men. (Chap- 
ter VII.) 

Christianity is built upon a personality, not 
upon dogma. Personality is the real edifice; 
dogma the scaffolding. Personality is the 
balance of doctrine. (Chapter VIII.) 

The salvation of the world of spirits is com- 
ing as came the evolution of matter, by the 
assimilation of all things and all souls unto 
God. The personal influence theory explains 
the corruptions of Christianity. (Chapter IX.) 

Personal influence is the force Christ care- 
fully selected as the means by which the whole 
world is to be saved. It is shown how per- 
sonal influence alone can do so great a work. 
(Chapter X.) 

The sorrows of the wicked are explainable 
only upon the theory that the sole saving 
power is the personal influence of God. *'Last 

17 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

things** are mainly speculative and not essen- 
tial to the purpose of revelation. (Chapter 
XL) 

A form of thought, confessedly theoretical, 
is suggested concerning the future life; as the 
forms given by mediaeval writers, equally the- 
oretical, have lost their utility because of our 
increased knowledge of the universe. (Chap- 
ter XII.) 

The whole is intended to prove that the 
theory that religion is the personal influence 
of God will be the recognized fundamental 
truth of the religion of to-morrow. For, 
based upon this theory, theology cannot decay 
but must grow and widen with the current of 
the world's intellectual and ethical progress. 



i8 



SUGGESTIONS 

The history of the world is its slow assimilation to 

God. 

The proof of inspiration is the divine personality 
within the Book. 

The personal influence theory does not explain all 
mysteries, but it brings us to see what are the true 
mysteries, God and Man, and what are the false, the 
machinery of ecclesiastical speculation and the par- 
adoxes of mediaevalism. 

When theology is prosecuted as a study of the 
nature and efifects of the personal influence of God it 
is transformed as if from the Ptolemaic to the Coperni- 
can theory, from Alchemy to Chemistry. 

Religion itself has made wonderful progress while 
the science of religion has sunk into disrepute. 

Theology should not be a science of dogma, as is 
the Law; but a science of fact, as are the natural 
sciences. 

The apostles have been held as our Blackstones 
and Chittys; we are to consider them as our Newtons 
and Keplers. 

There is something wrong with a theology that is 
saved from intellectual contempt only by respect for 
its subject matter. 

The religion of to-morrow is the religion of the 
early Greek Christian fathers. 

The heresies of an age best indicate its religious 
drift. 



CHAPTER II 

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 

The Purpose of God's Personal Influence is Trans- 
formation, not Transportation. 



" Ah, when shall all men's good 
Be each man's rule, and universal peace 
Lie like a shaft of light across the land. 
And like a lane of beams across the sea. 
Thro* all the circle of the golden year?" 

Tennyson, The Golden Year. 

"Christianity is making for this world a new 
heaven, and out of that a new earth. When we see 
new heavens, then we soon see new earth. We may 
say that the world has been made altogether new, 
and life wholly different, by the simple sight of God 
as the universal Father." — Clarke, Common Sense in 
Religion^ p. i66. 

"The habit of adjourning our higher hopes from 
this world to the next has greatly interfered with their 
fulfillment. But this habit is manifestly giving wav, 
partly from the growing interest in public life and 
philanthropic schemes, partly through a better under- 
standing of the Old and New Testament. It seems 
clear that the object of the life disclosed in the Scrip- 
tures is not merely to save individuals, but to train 
first one nation and then mankind to become the city 
of God."— Freemantle, The World as the Subject of 
Redemption^' p. 313. 

"Whatever makes men good Christians makes 
them good citizens." — Webster, Speech at Ply mouthy 
December 22, 1820. 

" The kingdom of God cometh not with outward 
shew; neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, 
behold, the kingdom of God is within you." — Jesus, 
Luke xvii. 20-21. 



CHAPTER II 

God is and always has been immanent in 
the world. The best of men have always sus- 
pected His presence. Polytheism was close 
to the truth ;^ it failed because it missed the 
personality of God. Judaism grasped the 
idea of His personality, but was faulty in that 
it tended to limit Him and to make Him to be 
a local and national deity.^ God has been in 
every age and race, brooding over His human 
children, slowly lifting them up by the influ- 
ence of His personality, into a higher life. It 
is immaterial to this argument whether we 
say that man fell or that he developed out of 
the beast; in either case he has been a miser- 
able, beastly character as far back as history 
and tradition shed their light. But there has 
been some force at work changing him gradu- 
ally for the better. This force has operated 
slowly, with many reverses, often appearing 
to go backward, yet, as the student of history 
knows, steadily gaining ground. Wherever 

^ "Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto 
you.*' — Paul's Address to the Athenians, Acts xvii. 23. 

* "The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, 
nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. God is a Spirit."— 
Jesus to the Woman of Samaria, John iv. 21, 24. 

23 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

there were men there was this power that 
makes for righteousness. In some cases, 
however, it worked more successfully than in 
others, for reasons unessential to our present 
discussion. It produced a wondrous civiliza- 
tion in Greece, a great religious conviction in 
the Orient, an exalted morality among the 
Jews. It is God. The same God is bring- 
ing all men everywhere up to the likeness 
of Himself by the influence of His person- 
ality. The Jews were nearer the truth than 
the others because they apprehended the most 
important fact concerning this force, its 
personality; therefore it is said: *' Salvation 
is of the Jews. ''^ But Jews and all failed be- 
cause there was something lacking. That 
something was a clear, intelligible knowledge 
of Deity as a person interested in helping 
every §on of man. In the course of time, 
when the social and intellectual progress of 
the world was sufficiently developed so that 
mankind could, in some accurate measure, 
understand Him, God embodied Himself in 
human flesh and spirit and came into human- 
ity as the Christ.^ Thus He for all time im- 
pressed the notion of His personality upon 
the race. But lest this person be localized, 
and thus the equally important thought of His 
immanence be lost sight of, Christ departed 

* John iv. 22. ' Heb. i. 1-4. 

24 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 

as a local figure and returned again as a Holy 
Ghost. ^ Thus we have the complete revela- 
tion of God as the Trinity; that is, as the 
Father He is the infinitely great Unknown 
and Unknowable Whom no man hath seen at 
any time; as the Christ He is knowable and 
definite and thus able to make a distinct im- 
pression upon men; and as the Holy Spirit 
He is personally present touching and mold- 
ing all. 

Now what is it that God wants to do among 
men? It is to alter their natures until they 
become like Himself. A humanity thus 
altered constitutes *'the kingdom of heaven." 
To form this kingdom was the avowed inten- 
tion of Jesus. One becomes a member of 
this realm not by any effort of his own except 
as that effort allows God*s personality to influ- 
ence him. When one enters upon a life of 
communion with God he is changed by the 
strong effect of God's character upon him to 
become like Christ. He is then set in an 
order of progress, his nature is then so re- 
formed, that he is said to have a new life — 
eternal life.^ **This is life eternal — to know 
God.''^ 

And now we come into conflict with current 
popular theology. To most men what does 

* ** If I go not away the Comforter will not come."— -John xvi. 7. 
« " And I will give unto them eternal life."— John x. 28. 

• John xvii. 3. 

35 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

the word ^'Eternal Life'* mean? It may not 
be an extreme statement to say that to very 
many it has no practical, present meaning 
except as something that we, before death, 
must prepare for. Although a few books and 
preachers of the more spiritual sort speak of 
it as a present possession, we usually look 
upon such talk as a kind of enthusiasm, while 
we think in reality eternal life actually begins 
at the close of this mortal life. It is reserved 
for true Christians as a happy reward after 
death. Eternity has its hither end at the 
grave; immortality begins where mortality 
ends. We urge sinners to repent and believe 
so they may "at last find a home in heaven." 
We sing: 

" O you must be a lover of the Lord 
Or you can't go to heaven when you die." 

Popular theology is correct in identifying 
eternal life and heaven: they are one and the 
same thing. But neither of them depends 
upon place. The doctrine of heaven as a 
place set before us as a chief inducement is 
wholly unscriptural. The Bible does not 
teach that this sublunary existence is a ** state 
of probation,** the sole purpose of which is 
to determine into which of the two future 
cities, heaven or hell, we are to go, "accord- 
ing to the deeds done in the body.** Christ 

26 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 

used no such motive as dominant, nor sanc- 
tioned it. Heaven is something more than a 
city in which all the righteous are gathered, 
and at whose gates Saint Peter stands hold- 
ing the keys. Eternal life is not a residence 
apportioned to those whose accounts balance 
with a credit upon the right side; the whole 
theory of balancing accounts is alien to the 
spirit of the Gospel. Heaven is not an ever- 
lasting pleasure-ground whither those go who 
have received a favorable verdict at a great 
court-room scene called '*The Day of Judg- 
ment." It is not a land separated from earth 
by the *' River Jordan,*' in whose dark waves 
all perish in attempting to cross unless they 
have been believers. There is indeed an ele- 
ment of poetic truth in all these figures, but 
as positive doctrines they are literalistic con- 
structions of the scattered imagery of the 
Bible. To postulate as dogmatic fact what 
was revealed as mere prophetic coloring is to 
be overwise.^ 

* The idea of Tesus was to magnify this earthly life by showing 
how sublime and God-like it mig^ht be made; the tendency of 
mediaeval theology has been to magnify this life the rather by Qm- 
Tthasizing the future consequences dependent ui>on. our use of it. 
vVhile both seem to come to the same thing, it will be readily 
seen that the influence of the former idea as a central doctrine 
would be to make life large, full, ind wholesome, and the influence 
of the latter as a central idea would tend (as we know it /las 
tended) to make life despicable, empty, and morbid. 

In a nutshell, the matter thus lies: Jesus' notion was for man 
to secure future bliss by concentrating his thought upon present 
godliness; the Latin system has been for man to secure present 
godliness by concentrating his thought upon future bliss. Al- 
though apparently the same, one process is the reverse of the 
other. One makes monks, the other makes men. 

27 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

The Bible contains no preachment about 
**getting to heaven'* as the object of life. 
Not to get us into heaven, but to get heaven 
into us, is the theme of Jesus. Heaven, with 
Him, is a condition and not a place. The 
very first text of His ministry opposed the 
theory of a far-off heaven, for he came pro- 
claiming: '* Repent, for the kingdom of 
heaven is at hand. ''^ Both He and His dis- 
ciples urged men to accept eternal life right 
then and there, and never once took the tenor 
of advising or warning men so to act that they 
might enter into a blessed place after death 
only. 

We do not wonder at the tenacity of this 
place idea, however. It is an old delusion of 
men to imagine that if they can but get into 
other surroundings, have different clothes, 
houses, means, and relatives, go to live in 
another city or country, or attain unto new 
skies, new soil, or new neighbors, then they 
shall be content. But even the heathen 
philosophers knew better than this; they knew 
that happiness comes from within and does 
not depend upon outward circumstances; and 
surely the Son of God knew more than they; 
He would not have made a mistake that even 
Epictetus and Socrates avoided.^ So He con- 

» Matt. iv. 17. 

• *' In a word, neither death, nor exile, nor pain, nor anything 
of this kind is the real cause of our doing or not doing any action, 

28 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 

demned the teaching that one's character can 
be soiled by "that which entereth into him," 
and declared that it is **that which cometh 
out of man,*' from his heart, that alone can 
taint the soul.^ A man without heaven in him 
would be wretched in the golden streets and 
smitten with ennui among the choiring angels; 
the water of life would not quench his thirst, 
neither would the fruit of the healing tree 
satisfy his desires, nor would the shining faces 
of the holy ones make him glad.^ And a man 
having ''Christ formed within" could walk 
around in the abode of the lost like the Hebrew 
children in the fiery furnace ; the flame would 
not singe a hair of his head. Even if sent to 
perdition the joy of such a man would remain 
with him, for "what shall separate us from 
the love of God?" 

" While blest with a sense of His love 
A palace a toy would appear; 
And prisons would palaces prove 
If Jesus would dwell with me there." • 

We may think that if we can get away from 
the hindrances of our present lot, from our 

but our inward opinions and principles.**— Epictetus, Discourses, 
ch. xi. 

" One ought to seek out virtue for its own sake, without being 
influenced by fear or hope, or by any external influence. More- 
over, in that does happiness consist.'* Zeno. 

" He is happiest who wants the fewest things." Socrates. 

' Matt. XV. II. 

• ** Myself am hell.'* Milton (see line 73 et seq., Paradise Lost). 

* Charles Wesley. 

29 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

dull drudgery, our temptations, and our worn- 
ments, and fly to a land where all is delight- 
ful, we would be peaceful and perfect; but 
unfortunately we have left out of the enu- 
meration of our enemies the greatest one of 
all — ourselves; and even in a land of angels 
we cannot escape ourselves. And, no matter 
what our condition, if we let the Holy Spirit 
into our heart we can rise to walk in heavenly 
life with Christ.^ 

This heaven-place error is inground into us. 
Almost all other reformers have hoped to 
better the world by altering man's environ- 
ment. They have striven for improved sys- 
tems of government, of taxation, of money, 
and of the distribution of property, and have 
fondly pictured the Utopias that would be 
attained could their respective schemes but be 
successful. But Jesus showed His divine wis- 
dom by disdaining all such makeshifts. When 
He came to save men from their wretchedness 
He did not esteem it worth while to attack 
slavery, tyranny, malfeasance in office, false 
forms of government, or any such thing. He 
penetrated at once by the intuition of wisdom 
to the cause of all these wrongs ; He was not 
led astray by symptoms, but went to the seat 
of the disease. He addressed Himself to the 
task of reforming men's hearts, aims, desires, 

* Phil. iv. II. "In whatsoever state . . . content." 

30 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 

and views. It was a gigantic undertaking, 
one that none ever before had dared seriously 
attempt, and one which not all of His follow- 
ers have thoroughly believed in since. But 
after all we are beginning to see that it is the 
only way substantial progress has ever been 
effected. No advance in human conditions 
has ever been permanent that has not been an 
advance of mankind itself. The only stable 
improvement in human affairs has been such 
as has followed naturally from improvement 
in humanity. 

A great many Christians still do not believe 
in Christ's method. They regard the world 
as hopelessly lost. All God can do is to save 
a few elect souls from the wreck. They are 
appalled and blinded by the stupendous power 
of evil. They do not believe that the gentle, 
permeating force of the Holy Spirit will ever 
transform the world by His present methods, 
and their only hope is some miraculous inter- 
ference of God to burn up the wicked and 
rescue the saints. The ''second advent" 
theories are a discounting of the efficacy of 
the Holy Ghost to save the world; they go 
upon the assumption that the best He can do 
is to save a few, but to redeem a whole race 
is too much for Him. But patiently and 
quietly the Christ is lifting all mankind out of 
darkness into light. When He is through 

31 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

with His work it will be done, done right and 
not needing to be done over again.^ God's 
plan is to make heaven for men, not by taking 
them away from the earth but by transforming 
them upon the earth. ^ He is to persevere 
until '*all shall know Him from the least to 
the greatest,"^ until '*His people shall be all 
holy.'** Then upon this globe we shall see 
the fulfilment of the promise, **Behold, I 
make all things new";^ we shall indeed have 
'*a new heaven and a new earth. "^ For there 
is nothing wrong with our planet but man, 
and other things only as they are affected by 
him. When this race has been changed, as it 
will be, earth itself will be as much a heaven 
as are those other places to which souls go 
after death. **For the earnest expectation of 
the creature (ktisis, the whole created world) 
waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of 
God, *'^ wrote Paul; that is to say, a trans- 
figured humanity will transfigure its environ- 
ment. Christ came not to condemn the world 
but to destroy the works of the devil in it, to 

' Isa. liii. II. •' He shall see of the travail of His soul, and 
shall be satisfied." 

' '* 1 pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of the world, 
but that Thou shouldst keep them from the evil." John xvii. 15. 

* Heb. viii. 11. 

* " Thy people shall be all righteous." Isa. Ix. 21. 

• Rev. xxi. 5. 

• Rev. xxi. I. 

' Rom. viii. 19. 

32 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 

turn it into a paradise, to make the lion and 
the lamb lie down together, to stop war, to 
wipe away all tears, to abolish disease, so that 
**none shall any more say, I am sick'*;^ and 
to do this, not by theatric interferences, but 
by the dispensation of the Spirit, by the 
transforming influence of His own personality 
upon the disposition of humanity. Paul 
grasped this thought when he exclaimed: 
*'We know that the whole creation groaneth 
and travaileth in pain together until now, '*^ 
that is, that the appearance of the Gospel of 
the Son of God in the world is the beginning 
of the end of all evil. If there is anything 
hurtful upon earth it is because of man, as it 
is intimated in the story of Adam and Eve. 
If there are deserts, thorns, bleak moors, and 
destructive storms, they are merely the reflec- 
tion of the moral state of man, doubtless 
designed by the Creator to show him in out- 
ward parable and parallel his inward soul, as 
all speech and ideas are formed upon the 
analogies of nature;^ and when man shall 
have been made new, when the human stock 
shall have been regenerated, then there shall 
be nothing that may hurt or destroy in all the 
earth, and this planet shall be one of the 
'*many mansions'* swinging musically in ''the 

* Isa. xxxiii. 24. See also Isa. xxv., xxxv. and Iv., Rev. xxi., etc. 

• Rom. viii. 22. 

« See Bushnell: " Moral Uses of Dark Things.'* 

33 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

heavens.*'^ The divine program is not trans- 
portation but transfiguration. 

The complete salvation of man having been 
removed beyond the grave, it is necessary 
for common theology to make another wrong 
proposition, namely, that there is some sort of 
moral efficacy in death. We must expect, it 
is held, to spend our days here in worry and 
sin, but if we put our trust in God, in some 
way death will make us all right. Death is 
thus popularly held to have more power to 
renew the soul than has the Christ. The 
latter can only save us from hell, and write 
our names in the book of life so we can enter 
heaven, but to hold that He can make us 
heavenly creatures here — that is fanaticism. 
Although we are saved by Him, that only 
means we are assured of a home in glory, 
and we still must go on sinning and fretting 
and quarreling till '''death shall set us free. '*^ 
Jesus can only remit the penalty of our sins; it 
is all-potent death that shall break tht power 
of sin in us. If Christ is said to cleanse us, 
that is only theoretically; for death is the 

* John xiv. 2. 

* '* So when my latest breath 

Shall rend the veil in twain, 
By death I shall escape from death 
And life eternal gain."— James Montgomery. 
The hymns of the church, however, are remarkably free from 
ascribing any direct moral efficacy to death. The above instance 
is not a fair sample. The idea of death's moral value abides 
rather as a general impression among Christians, than as a speci- 
fically taught doctrine. 

34 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 

real cleanser. We are born again theolog- 
ically at conversion, but we do not become 
really new creatures until death does its work. 
In other words, death^ not Jesus^ is to gain 
heaven for us! 

Now, where in the Bible, is any such 
theory? Are the redeemed in glory singing: 
**Glory to death which hath washed us?"^ 
The fact is that in the New Testament death 
has no moral force whatsoever, Christ abol- 
ished death. ^ It is henceforth nothing. It is 
merely a milestone of life. It will change the 
body^ but there is no reason to believe it will 
in any degree change the character. It will 
enable us to put on incorruption but not to 
put in incorruption. There is positively not 
one intimation in the Scriptures that one will 
arise from the grave with any better character 
or disposition than that which he had when 
he lay down in the grave. If heaven never 
gets into you here there is no ground to hope 
you will get into it hereafter.^ 

* Rev. i. 5. *• Unto Him, etc., be glory." 

* *' Our Saviour hath abolished death." 2 Tim. i. 10. i Cor. 
XV. 54: *' Death is swallowed up in victory." i Cor. xv. 26 : "As 
a last enemy is death done away." Meyer's translation. Beet 
gives : " As a last enemy death is brought to naught." The verb 
at any rate is present, not future. " Not the God of the dead, but 
the God of the living." Mark xii. 27. 

^ "Christianity does not convince us of immortality by any 
process of argument — it makes us believe in immortal life by 
quickening all the immortal powers of the soul. It makes us live 
in the immortal part, and not the mortal part of our being; in the 
spirit, not in the flesh. This is the real argument of eternal life, — 
that we are alive now. The more of present life we have the more 
shall we believe in the future. "—James Freeman Clarke, "Com- 
mon Sense in Religion," p. 197. 

3S 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

The word **saved" has also been corrupted 
from its true signification. We make much 
of this term in revival meetings and current 
evangelical preaching. Some have the right 
apprehension of it, but with most of us it is 
mixed with a false quantity. *' Saved," in the 
Bible, means rescued from sin, and is never 
narrowly confined to mean made sure of 
escaping punishment. But how often do we 
hear prayers that God will "finally save us in 
heaven,*' *'at last save us," *'forgive us now 
and in death save us," and the like? ^ Whereas, 
if there is saving to be done it is now or never, 
and we should pray to be saved day by day.^ 
What is to happen at death is not in this day 
our concern ; God will take care of us then ; 
but the only salvation that should be our care 
is a present salvation from baseness and unto 
Christliness. It is not for us to worry about 
where we are going when we die, nor to be a 
Christian primarily to secure ourselves from 
woe after death. The life in Christ is to be 
preached and exemplified by Christians, as so 
full, so joyous, so complete, that the world 
shall turn to it as a thing to be desired. When 
Christians are no happier nor holier than good 
average non-Christians, it is useless to try to 
cozen men into the church by promises of 

' The Lord's Prayer, the divine model, has only one reference 
to any salvation, that is, *'and deliver us from evil." 

* *' Behold, now is the day of salvation." 2 Cor. vi. 2. 

36 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 

future bliss, or to scare them into the church 
by bogies of future scenes of torment. Christ 
indicated the program of His church's vic- 
tory; ''And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all 
men unto me. "^ The Gospel's triumph waits 
for saved men and women to win the world; 
saved not so much from perdition as saved 
from sensuality, selfishness, hardness, greed, 
envy, jealousy, and all the weak and beggarly 
elements of common life; saved unto purity, 
thoughtfulness, courtesy, kindness, long-suf- 
fering, love, joy, peace, hope; in short, saved 
to become heaven-holders, not mere heaven- 
seekers. 

The fear of death is nothing more than a 
superstition,^ and Christ and His apostles 
never stooped to use such, although it has 
always been the policy of the mistaken church 
to deal tenderly with a superstition when it 
seems advantageous. Bacon says: *'Men 
fear death as children fear to go into the 
dark, and as that natural fear of children is 
increased with tales, so is the other." It 
seems so right to induce one to come to Christ 
by revealing to him the terrors of the penal- 

' John xii. 32. 

' *' For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, 
and of love, and of a sound mind.'" 2 Tim. i. 7. Not only is fear 
taken away from believers, but the energizing "spirit of the 
Gospel" is not a " spirit of fear." " Christ came to deliver them 
who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bond- 
age." Heb. ii. 15. 

37 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

ties beyond death, that we would hear a great 
outcry against any one who would condemn 
this policy. And yet by such preaching we 
have let down the whole tone of the Gospel, 
we have descended to the level of the heathen 
priests and medicine-men, and we have for- 
feited the respect of the sound sense and true 
culture of the world. The New Testament 
employs this motive sparingly. When Christ 
preached to the common folk did He begin or 
end by threats of perdition? No: His first 
sermon was *' Blessed, blessed, blessed," a 
picture of the higher, better life He was to 
make possible for men. The young Messiah 
came preaching: *' Repent, for the kingdom 
of heaven is at hand,*' and not *' Repent, or 
the demons will get you by and by." When 
He called His disciples He said: ** Follow 
Me!" and He did not first reveal to them the 
awful consequences of their sin. Now read 
carefully over all the places where He speaks 
of retribution, such as the parables of Dives, 
the Ten Virgins, the Last Judgment, and the 
like, and you will find that almost all these 
were directed against the scribes and Phari- 
sees. He did not preach to ^'sinners," so- 
called, by appealing to fear, but thus to the 
self-righteous. And it is a question whether 
the scenes of retributive justice He portrayed 
in these illustrative stories are didactic state- 

38 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 

ments of what is to take place after death, so 
much as they are visions of the ruin and 
contumely that invariably come to Pharisaic 
obstinacy and hypocrisy, whether in this world 
or in the next. It is an arbitrary assumption 
to hold that all these passages refer to the 
final Day of Judgment. Christ certainly did 
reveal the misery of the wicked, but this was 
not the tone nor the motive element in His 
Gospel. 

Then examine the preaching of the apostles. 
Did they get their great power of conviction 
by heralding damnation after death to all who 
refused to hear? Fortunately the book of 
Acts gives us many samples of early sermons. 
Peter preached on one occasion, and many 
were pricked to the heart and repented and 
were saved. What was it he said that caused 
this? It was not any threat he made, but it 
was that he held up before them the Lord 
Jesus, the Man who went about doing good, 
whom they with impious hands had slain. It 
was that that smote them.^ And so always 
true conviction of sin comes by preaching Christy 
while it is only a desire to escape penalty that 
comes by preaching the wrath to come. Do 
you ever find in Paul's letters, or John's, or 
James's, or Peter's, any appeals to men to 
prepare for death, to make haste lest death 

» Acts ii. 36, 37. 

39 



m 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

overtake, to come now lest to-night death 
may intervene, or such expostulation as we 
hear these days, such as, for instance, con- 
torts the meaning of the text, ** Prepare to 
meet thy God,'* making it to mean prepare to 
meet Him after death instead of prepare 
to meet Him now?^ Truly there is a fateful 
tone both in Jesus and the apostles, a clear 
revelation of the eternal joy of them that 
accept the great salvation, and of the eternal 
sorrow of them that neglect it; but there is no 
such priestly and superstitious exploitation of 
death, the *'King of Terrors,** the awful mys- 
tery, to hurry ignorant men into perfunctory 
profession of a life they in no measure appre- 
ciate nor wish for, as we find in the latter his- 
tory of the church. Saving with the gospel- 
ers, was a saving from sin^ not primarily a 
saving from shadowy, dreadful torment in a 
future life. 

The essential element in salvation is deliv- 
erance, not security; for the latter is merely 
a consequence of the former. Men are under 
the power of beastly impulses and evil habits 
and thoughts. Christ comes as a deliverer to 
break the dominion of sin and set men free 
that they may lead true lives. No one is ever 
saved in the sense of being insured against 

* Amos iv. 12. " Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel; 
and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O 
Israel.'* ^ 

40 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 

falling again into sin, and hence into condem- 
nation. Paul certainly was a saved man, and 
he declared that he had to keep his body 
under lest he himself should become a cast- 
away.^ Even the angels were not secure in 
this sense, for we read that some of them 
fell.^ The whole insurance idea is pernicious. 
We are indeed secure in the sense of knowing 
that so long as we are in the love of God 
no harm can befall us, but the idea that, be- 
cause of anything that we do or that God 
has done for us, we henceforth are removed 
from any possibility of sinning, is a dangerous 
tradition, inconsistent with free moral agency 
and unwarranted by Holy Writ.^ Neither in 
this world nor in the world to come is any 
such artificial security guaranteed us. While 
we are living in Him, while He leads us, we 
are certain of peace and all good things and 
are safe from harm; but that there is any 
insurance policy issued to a soul in whom God 
does not abide as a saving presence, this 
teaching has done much damage in the 
world. 

Progress, not security, is the object of reli- 
gion. The history of the church illustrates 

^ I Cor. ix. 27. « Jude 6. 

3 Paul's confidence was in God, not in any impeccable state; 
** I am persuaded nothing shall separate us from the love of God." 
Rom. viii. 38, 30: and, *'l know ivhom I have believed (not uuhat 

1 have believed) and 1 am persuaded that He is able to keep." 

2 Tim. i. 12. 

41 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 



this. God has been always calling a chosen 
few. But He called them to develop; they 
constantly misunderstood Him; thinking they 
were called to security. They were elected 
to progress; they thought themselves called 
to a fixed state of divine favor. So He has 
always been at last rejecting those whom He 
called and raising up others. Thus He se- 
lected the Jewish nation to develop the idea of 
God among men. When they persistently 
construed their privilege to be merely a selfish 
heritage because they were better than Gen- 
tiles, He cast them off. He raised up, then, 
the church, that through it the influence of 
His Spirit might develop men. The church 
made the same mistake, thinking it was 
segregated to be secure, not to progress. It 
conceived itself to be a colonization society 
to transport a few souls from a hopelessly lost 
world into heaven. Therefore in these times 
we see God doing great works outside of the 
church, through Christian, yet non-denomina- 
tional agencies, such as the thousands of 
charities and humane institutions. While 
churchly dominancy as such is on the wane, 
the ideas the church stands for never had so 
much vitality. Thus He constantly chooses 
and lays aside His agencies, as they obey or 
disobey Him. He is continually saying, *'Go 
on! Come up higher!*' while the church 

42 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 

continually misunderstands Him to say, 
'*Here you may rest." 

What does the New Testament mean by 
heaven, seeing it does not mean a place, nor 
mean a condition that begins at death? 
Heaven, in the New Testament, is used in 
two senses: first, the sky, as * 'clouds in 
heaven,*' '*a voice from heaven," **looking 
up into heaven"; and second, the spiritual 
kingdom which Christ came to set up among 
men, as *'the kingdom of heaven is among 
you." So that we have two ideas in the New 
Testament word heaven: first, the boundless 
universe, or skyey host, which always, since 
man first looked upward, has been the symbol 
of majesty and glory, and has been the 
inspirer of lofty thoughts; this is the symbol; 
second, the spiritual reality itself, the actu- 
ality typified by the symbol, that is, the realm 
of high and divine living, into which the Son 
of God came to lift men. 

It is this last meaning that is constantly in 
the mind of Christ. He distinctly said: 
"The Kingdom of God cometh not with ob- 
servation — neither shall ye say, Lo here! or, 
Lo there! for, behold, the Kingdom of God 
is among you. "^ The Kingdom of God is not 
up there in the sky, nor over there in the 
sweet by and by, but it is down here in 

^ Luke xvii. 21. 

43 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

our breasts, over here among the pots and 
kettles. 

Paul says the same thing in another way: 
"The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink/' 
that is, it is not any materiality of time or 
place, *'but righteousness and peace and joy 
in the Holy Ghost. *'^ The Master would 
never have said to His disciples, '*Go preach, 
the Kingdom of God is at hand,*'^ if He 
meant the abode of the blessed. Most of the 
parables were spoken to show what "the king- 
dom of heaven is like**: but He must have 
had in mind the spiritual domain among living 
men and could not have intended to speak 
of the home beyond the grave, when He said 
that it was like a mustard seed, or a sower, 
or tares and wheat, or a draw net, or an un- 
merciful servant, and the like.^ 

There is an upper thought and a lower 
thought about any truth. The lower is 
earthy, tangible, narrow; the upper is spir- 
itual, invisible, large; the lower is temporal, 
passing into the higher; the upper is eternal 
and abides. Paul says: "We look not at the 
things which are seen, for they are temporal ; 
but we look at the things which are not seen, 
for they are eternal. *' * Heaven can never be 

' Rom. xiv. 17. This, however, was not Paul's point in this 
passage. 

• Matt. X. 7. See also Matt. iii. 2; iv. 17; Mark i. 15; Luke x. 9; 
xi. 20; etc. 

* See Matt, xiii., etc. * 2 Cor. iv. 18. 

44 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 

seen with the eye, for the things of God are 
**spiritually discerned.''^ Speaking of the 
bliss of the redeemed, Paul declares that "eye 
hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it 
entered into the heart of man to conceive the 
things that God hath prepared for them that 
love Him*'— a text that is usually applied to 
the glories of the next world, which shows 
how tenacious a misconception can be, for the 
apostle, in the very next words following, 
adds, **but God hath revealed them to us by 
His spirit/' ^ It is this upper thought that is 
always in the mind of Jesus. To it should be 
referred those sayings of His which allude to 
the heavenly kingdom. 

Let us take some of these passages and see 
how much more sane and reasonable the upper 
thought renders them. When we are told to 
"lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven,"' 
is it not better to interpret it that we are to 
invest in men, to seek to be rich in what we 
produce of good to our fellows, rather than 
to put by good deeds to stand to our credit 
in the next life? The real wealth of the 
world is in healthy bodies, sound minds, and 
true souls, and we are to increase the supply 
of such treasures as this for ourselves; one is 
rich in proportion as he has developed man- 
hood in others and himself, for this store 

* 2 Cor. ii. 14. « I Cor. ii. 9, 10. * Matt. vi. 19 21. 

45 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

** neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, nor 
thieves break through and steal." 

**For great is your reward in heaven" ^ sig- 
nifies the gain we secure in our inward stock 
of that '^righteousness, peace, and joy" of 
which Paul says heaven is composed ; and not 
that after death we will be recompensed for 
all the earthly pleasures we have missed here. 

*'Seek first the kingdom of God and His 
righteousness" ;^ is it not more rational to con- 
strue this as an admonition to seek first the 
higher life than to seek first security after 
death? 

Speaking to the Pharisees who had accused 
Him of casting out devils by the aid of Beelze- 
bub, Jesus replied: ''But if I cast out devils 
by the Spirit of God, then is the kingdom of 
God come unto you. "^ Is it that the holy 
city had come unto them? 

**It is harder for a camel to pass through the 
eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter 
the kingdom of God"* — not for him to 
squeeze past Peter at the gate, but harder 
for him, with the multiform temptations to a 
sensual life that come with wealth to appre- 
ciate, to desire or to be willing to receive a 
life like that of Christ. 

"The publicans and harlots go into the 

* Matt. V. 12. * Luke xi. 20. 

« Matt. vi. 33. * Mark x.25. 

46 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 

kingdom of God before you (chief priests)*';^ 
that is, their simple, open natures more 
quickly grasp my meaning and follow me, 
than your minds, so full of self-conceit. 

*'The kingdom of heaven suffereth vio- 
lence, and the violent take it by force" ;^ 
not that men storm the walls of the New 
Jerusalem, but that determined, intense souls 
easily win the higher life. 

'^Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is 
the kingdom of heaven'';^ not that they are 
to be given rule over the future country, but 
that theirs is the disposition which is best 
disposed to assimilate with the life revealed 
by Christ. 

**The same shall be called least — greatest 
in the kingdom of heaven*';* not that there 
are ranks and degrees in the world to come 
(which may or may not be true; this passage 
has nothing to do with it), but that men ap- 
prehend the life of Christ in a greater or a 
less degree. 

"It is given unto you to know the mysteries 
of the kingdom of heaven, but unto them it 
is not given'* '^ — given to His disciples, not 
to the Pharisees. This is not to say the 
disciples were to understand the mysteries of 
the life beyond, for they did not, or if they 

* Matt. xxi. 31. 3 Matt. v. 3. * Matt. xiii. 11. 

' Matt. xi. 12. * Matt. xi. 11; xviii. 4. 

47 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

did they never told them ; but that they alone, 
receiving Christ, were to comprehend the 
wondrous powers and joys of the higher liv- 
ing; this mystery they did declare. 

*'And I will give unto thee (Peter) the keys 
of the kingdom of heaven."^ What a world 
of churchly nonsense would have been saved 
if men had but grasped the upper thought 
here! The kingdom was the Christ-life, the 
key was the spirit that made it plain, unlocked 
it. The "power of the keys" is not lodged in 
any pope or church, but in the man who knows 
and trusts in Jesus, and thus acquires *'the 
mind of Christ." 

**Ye Pharisees shut up the kingdom of 
heaven";^ they did not bar the doors of the 
city of the blest; that they could not do; but 
they, by their perversion of true religion, 
prevented men from seeing and entering upon 
the life of real godliness. 

These illustrations might be increased from 
the New Testament, but perhaps enough have 
been set forth to show how much more whole- 
some and Christ-like our perception of the 
mind of the Spirit in the Book will be if we 
give constant preference to the upper thought. 

Some may say, "But do you not destroy by 
this argument the hope of heaven, a sweet, 
inspiring, and healthful incentive?" By no 

* Matt. xvi. 19. ' Matt, xxiii. 13. 

48 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 

means. This hope is reasonable and well 
founded. We do not attempt to destroy it, 
but to rest it upon a sure and Scriptural basis. 
The true theory of a life of bliss beyond the 
grave is that it is the necessary, natural con- 
tinuance of the divine life begun here. The 
point is, that heaven is not a reward, a differ- 
ent life or place bestowed on us after death 
as pay or wages for what we do here; but that 
if one now enters upon the Christ-life, he has 
entered upon an eternal career, upon which 
death has no effect. *'Nor life nor death nor 
things present nor things to come*' shall 
separate him from the divine inward power 
which raises him up to be God's true child. 

We conclude, then, that the object of God's 
personality as revealed in Jesus, is to trans- 
form this race into His own image. How He 
is to do this with those who live upon earth, 
He has shown. What He is to do with those 
souls He has taken away, through death, to 
other spheres is not our concern. *'What is 
that to thee? Follow thou Me!*'^ 

* John xxi. 22. 



49 



SUGGESTIONS 

The causal force in Evolution among animals and 
plants is the same as the causal force of Development 
among spirits — it is God. 

The doctrine of the Trinity is the conservator of 
the idea of God's personality. 

Broadly speaking, environment does not make 
man, man makes environment; in this sense heaven 
is a happy place. 

There is no moral efficacy in death. 

The whole insurance idea of salvation is pernicious. 

Conviction of sin is wrought by God's personal in- 
fluence; only desire to escape penalty is wrought by 
fear. 

The essential element in salvation is deliverance, 
not security. 

The true ground of our belief in a future life is that 
it is a necessary continuation of the kind of life we 
have here; thus Christ said merely: "If it were not so 
I would have told you." 



CHAPTER III 

DYNAMICS 

The Power of Religion Consists not in Rewards and 
Punishments but in God's Personal Influence 



** Thou hast heard that it hath been said by them 
of old time — but I say unto you.'* — Jesus, Matt. 

V. 21, 22. 

"The first thing a boy has to do, is to learn implicit 
obedience to rules. The first thing in importance for 
a man to learn is to sever himself from maxims, 
rules, laws. Why? That he may become antinomian 
or latitudinarian? No. He is severed from sub- 
mission to the maxim, because he has got allegiance 
to the principle. In every law there is a spirit, in 
every maxim a principle; and the law and the maxim 
are laid down for the sake of conserving the spirit 
and the principle which they inshrine.'* — Robertson, 
The Lawful and Unlawful Use of Law, 

*' Our very religion itself has no surer foundation 
than the contempt of death." — Montaigne, Essays, 
Vol. I., 74. 

"The greatest, however, of all the obstacles to the 
habit of following truth, is the tendency to look in the 
first instance to the expedient. And this is the sin 
which most easily besets those who are engaged in 
the instruction of others, inasmuch as the conscious- 
ness of falsehood even if it exist at the outset, will 
very soon wear away. He who does not begin by 
preaching what he thoroughly believes, will speedily 
end by believing what he preaches." — Whately, 
Difficulties in the Writings of St, Paul, p. 49. 



CHAPTER III 

We have seen that the object of God is to 
redeem men by bringing them into commun- 
ion with Himself. We next pass to the 
agency or means by which this conversion is 
to be effected. That agency is simply and 
only His personal influence. As men come to 
know Him, they will be **changed into the 
same image as by the Spirit of the Lord." 
The true, proper, and dominant motive, there- 
fore, in spreading Christ's kingdom consists 
in manifesting Him in our lives and bearing 
witness to Him, so that through us others 
may be brought into touch with Him. This 
is the Gospel motive. It has completely 
superseded the temporary motive of rewards 
and punishments. We may safely say that 
rewards and punishments have been abolished 
by the programme of Jesus; provided, we 
keep in mind that it is only as motives they 
have thus been superseded by a better motive. 

For as facts, as natural results inherently 
consequent upon all our actions, they, of 
course, must ever remain. Throughout eter- 
nity it must ever be that to do wrong brings 

S3 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

pain, and to do right joy. But it is one thing 
to recognize this as a beneficent law of nature, 
and quite another thing to make it the dy- 
namics of the Christian propaganda.^ 

The only system of rewards and punish-' 
ments explicitly laid down in the Scriptures 
is in the Old Testament; and they were all 
temporal, they were not said to take effect 
beyond the grave. If the people were obedi- 
ent, they were to be prospered in basket and 
store, to be healthy and numerous, to be vic- 
torious in battle and to be abundant in goods. 
The whole scheme was an earthly one. The 
Old Testament does not lift the veil of death 
to reveal the future. It is, therefore, the 
rewards and punishments of this earth only 
that are used in the Old Testament as in- 
centives. When the New Testament preach- 
ers appeared, they dropped these incentives 
for a better one. The glories of heaven and 
the miseries of hell are never exhibited by 
them to induce men to become Christians. 

Let us see how Paul especially laid stress 
on this. He says over and over that to Chris- 
tians the law has ceased as a spring of con- 

' Archbishop Whately has so lucidly covered this ground that 
a considerable portion of his essay *' On the Abolition of the Law" 
is reprinted in the appendix. It is from his " Essays on Some of 
the Difficulties in the Writings of St. Paul," and as this volume. 



as well as many of Whately' s other works, is h^rd to procure in 

• ' _' Id) " 

iprmt in tne appendix may be of use. It will 
careful study: and aU of the writings of this remarkably clear 



this country (I had to get my own volume from England ) perhaps 

;11 



the reprint in the appendix may be of use. It will well repay 
careful study: and aU of the writings of this remar] 
author are commended to the student. See appendix. 

54 



DYNAMICS 

duct. But It has ceased not because the new 
dispensation is against it, but beyond it; just 
as a father has a set of rules with penalties 
attached for his little children, which rules 
and penalties, when the youths grow to man- 
hood, are unused, not because they are no 
more true nor obeyed, but because the boys, 
if they are to form manly characters, must 
not any longer lean upon them, but learn to 
act upon their own spirit and intelligence. 
''Not one jot or tittle of the law shall pass," 
said Jesus; that is, there will never come a 
time when those commandments are not just, 
when keeping them does bring reward and 
breaking them calamity. But there did come 
a time when the knowledge of reward and 
punishment became utterly insufficient to 
secure obedience to law, and another motive 
was needed. So Paul says the commandment 
became weak and unprofitable, and was disan- 
nulled, because it **made nothing perfect" 
(did not work well); ''but," he adds, "the 
bringing in of a better hope did, by the which 
we draw nigh unto God. "^ He calls the law, 
the Old Testament rules, faulty, and says that 
it "decayeth and waxeth old and ready to 
vanish away," so that now in the Gospel we 
have "a better covenant, which is established 
on better promises." Rewards and punish- 

* Heb. vii. 16-9; vii. 7-13. 

55 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

ments will do for slaves, but Christ came "to 
redeem them that were under the law that we 
might receive the adoption of sons; where- 
fore we are no more slaves but sons; and 
having received this glorious gospel, how 
turn ye again to the weak and beggarly rudi- 
ments?'*^ The moving spirit of law is fear, 
and Christ takes away this spirit, for '*we 
have not received the spirit of bondage again 
unto fear, but we have received the spirit of 
adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."^ 
What part of the law, then, was disannulled, 
and what part remains forever? The answer 
is, that forever the law, as a statement of 
what constitutes sin, and as a declaration of 
the evil results of sin, must abide; but that 
the part which has been removed is the 
motive by which men are induced to keep the 
law. For the fault with the law lay entirely 
in its lack of power to secure its enforcement. 
The preaching of its penalties and prizes was 
therefore abandoned, and in its stead came 
the preaching of "Christ, the power of God." 
For "what the law could not do, in that it 
was weak," God did by sending Christ to 
operate upon men by His personality.^ 

Why, then were rewards and punishments 
ever exploited? They are good for children — 
that is, they are of value for those who are 

^ Gal. i. 9. * Rom. viii. 15. * Rom. viii. 4. 

S6 



DYNAMICS 

irresponsible} So young children are not 
responsible, but as the responsibility of their 
acts rests upon the parent, it is necessary for 
him to give them temporary and artificial 
props to hold them up in right conduct until 
they are sufficiently developed to walk for 
themselves. If we are forever under rules we 
can never grow, but must always remain 
babes. We must remember that God's object 
with us is not primarily to make us do right; 
there is something more important than this: 
it is that we have right characters. If all 
He desired were our proper conduct, He 
might have made us beasts ruled by instinct, 
or machines run by iron and steam. But His 
purpose is that we grow in grace and become 
like Himself. It is essential to growth that 
a man should train and use his own con- 
science. He must learn for himself to judge 
between right and wrong. He must continu- 
ally be made to feel that he is the arbiter of 
his own destiny. Thus the law is called "a 
schoolmaster to bring us to Christ,'* but, now 
that the world has seen Him, "we are no 
longer under a schoolmaster."^ 

The whole law scheme is gone. Our posi- 
tion is not any more that of a king's subjects 
or a master's pupils, but that of a Father's 

* Law may be defined as the conscience of one imposed upon 
another. 

* Gal. iii. 24-25. 

57 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

sons. But there is a timid and childish ele- 
ment in us that dreads responsibility. The 
tendency to go back to a set of rules is as 
powerful and obstinate to-day among modern 
Christians as it was in Paul's day among the 
Judaizing Christians. We tremble to trust 
our own conscience. Therefore we call the 
Bible our **rule of faith,*' when Jesus' words 
are not rules at all, but principles. We would 
regulate our conduct by chapter and verse. 
We drift to literalism, seeking there a shelter 
from the burden of personal accountability. 
We dare not cut loose from the schoolmaster 
and entrust ourselves to the Christ-Spirit.^ 
Thus, also, we ask the church to make rules 
for us, to tell us what is permitted and what 
is forbidden in regard to amusements, dress, 
food, and drink, and such things. All such 
regulations are inimical to the manhood of its 
membership. The object of a church should 
be to strengthen and develop its people, and 
not to dwarf them. The net tendency of all 
ecclesiastical interference with private judg- 
ment is therefore to make a type of Christians 
that is zealous but narrow, inclined to pride 
and censoriousness. Rules make Pharisees.^ 
Principles make Christians. 

* See particularly on this point in the article from Whately in 
appendix. 

* *' Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." 
Luke xii. i. Hypocrisy, literally, stage-playing, acting a part in- 
stead of being a character. 

58 



DYNAMICS 

It is intrinsically impossible to encourage 
and foster nobility by rewards and punish- 
ments. One never does a noble deed because 
he expects pay for it, nor because he is afraid 
of some pain if he refuses to do it; he acts 
nobly only when he cares nothing for the con- 
sequences, when the deed so appeals to his 
heroism that he will do it though he suffer 
even disgrace and death thereby. Jesus 
appeals to this soldier instinct in men. ''Fol- 
low me,*' He says, "and get persecuted and 
crucified**; and the divine soul of man rises 
to the call and follows Him, exclaiming, "I 
count all things loss for the excellency of the 
knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord. I 
esteem them but dung, if I may win 
Christ.**^ 

It is equally out of the question to produce 
any sort of greatness in men by rules and 
penalties. The clerk in the counting-room 
who acts only by rules never rises to be any- 
thing else than a machine; while the propri- 
etor is developed and made masterful by con- 
tinually being forced to do and dare upon his 

* Phil. iii. 8. Bravery, not fear, is the fundamental virtue of 
character. The first step toward God is not fear, it is the exalta- 
tion of the soul above fear of any consequences. Courage is the 
universal virtue. No race of men has been found that does not 
reverence it. The early men, apotheosized by heathen nations, 
were stained with other crimes, but none were cowards. If Chris- 
tianity were grounded in dread it could but be pusillanimous. 
Bacon indicates the trend of this thought, how Jesus raised reli- 
gion above cupidity and timidity, when he says: "Prosperity 
IS the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity the blessing of 
the New." 

59 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

own judgment. Christ came to make us 
kings, not good slaves; to train us to com- 
pare and observe and act as our own conscience 
gives the verdict. He simply supplies that 
conscience with a principle, properly orien- 
tates it, and then sends us out to stand or 
fall, and by falling to learn to stand. 
** Henceforth,'* said He, "I call you not ser- 
vants, but friends.**^ 

The making of vows, or the taking upon 
ourselves pledges, to follow a certain line of 
religious conduct is thus also hurtful to the 
character. For a vow operates as a sort of 
rule, and worst of all, a rule of our own poor 
making. Our motive henceforth is not to be 
principle, but our own decree. Anything is 
damaging that separates us from reliance upon 
our own character. Having taken a pledge, 
if we then fall, as we are liable to do, the fall 
is complicated by our sense of self-contempt 
for a broken word, which frequently acts 
to hinder our reformation. A fall from a 
mere resolution, as such, may be made of use 
to us by teaching us humility and reliance upon 
God ; but when the matter is mixed up with a 
broken pledge we are simply making provi- 
sion for despair. Christ alone in this life is 
intended to be our strength, and we supple- 
ment this divinely ordained safeguard at our 

' John XV. 15. 

60 



DYNAMICS 

peril. ^ **Swear not at all; let your yea be 
yea, and your nay be nay/' 

In reading what has been said above, it must 
be borne in mind that I here speak of rules 
as motives, and refer to the tendency to lean 
back upon some list or catalogue or church 
or priest or other external authority in order 
to satisfy conscience. The source and spring 
of right action should always be the character; 
that is, we should take care that we do right 
because we are right men, take care that we 
have right natures, that have become so 
assimilated to the nature of the indwelling 
Christ that it is natural for us to do right. 
Until that point in our development is reached 
we are not truly Christians. To do right 
because we ought, and yet to feel that 
it goes against the grain, is commendable; 
but while this may please us by showing us 
that we can overcome self, it should at the 
same time warn us that our natures are not 
yet up to the divine mark of what they may 
be; and it should encourage us not to stop 
until Christ has transformed our tendencies and 
desires, which indeed is possible. 

Now, to accomplish this desired end rules 
may be useful — that is, rules are good as 

^ Jesus exacted no pledge from His disciples, nor they from 
their converts. The only disciple who did make a solemn promise 
to Him broke the promise and denied Him. "Peter answered 
and said unto Him, Though all men shall be offended in Thee, yet 
will I never be offended." The sequel we know. 

6i 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

temporary aids to bring us to right character; 
in fact, they are very helpful and necessary 
as schoolmasters to discipline us ; but their value 
is just in proportion as they enable us to be- 
come so strong that we less and less need 
them, learning by nature and habit to do the 
things we begin to do by resolution ; in other 
words, rules and their attendant penalties are 
good just as they gradually disappear, having 
led us to Christ. The law is a measure, a 
yardstick divinely given, so that we may test 
ourselves and see whether we be in Christ, 
for nothing is so easy as self-deception. It is 
a steam-gauge, to indicate how much moral 
force is in us ; and if we think we be Christians 
and yet fail to measure up to the law we know 
we are mistaken; we have *'tried the spirit," 
as John advises us, and found it faulty. But 
the law is only a gauge ; it is not force. There- 
fore, if we do thus and so, only because it is 
the law, we will not grow. 

Rules, therefore, are good only as they are 
used with sincere prayer for such inward 
spirit as shall make us want to do what the 
rule says. The object of every rule is to 
bring us into the best condition for receiving 
the influence of God. Our religious feelings 
are to be permanent, and therefore must have 
permanent channels of habit in which to run, 
for our emotions are also largely creatures of 

62 



DYNAMICS 

custom. What is begun in the will must end 
in the desires. Religious routine, stated 
times of prayer, the giving of the tenth, the 
keeping of the Sabbath, and so on, are so to 
accustom us to righteous practice that God's 
influence in us will be helped, not hindered. 
Now, to do these and similar observances 
because we think there is merit in iheniy and 
because we expect credit for them, is to make 
them ruin the character. We will find them 
growing more and more irksome, and as they 
are the more bitter, we will attach still the 
more value to them because of their growing 
unpleasantness; and thus we will discover in 
ourselves that character and practice are run- 
ning away from each other instead of coalescing. 
But if we deliberately put on the '*form of 
godliness" by sheer will, not because that 
form has any merit or will gain any external 
reward, but because by the assistance of the 
^^form'^ we mean to give free course to "the 
power of godliness'* in us, then shall we see the 
form by degrees swallowed up in the power. 

As to what rules we shall adopt in order to 
assist us in coming more fully under the influ- 
ence of God, the above principles make the 
matter clear. We are to use rules carefully, 
because they may be as dangerous to our 
spiritual life as they may be useful. The 
only rules or statutes that are of absolute use 

63 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

to every one are those given in the Scriptures. 
No church nor council has any right to add 
to, any more than it has to subtract from, the 
divine law as a universal rule. Thou shalt 
not lie, steal, and so on, are useful to every 
man; every man must use these practices if he 
would abide in Christ. Besides these, how- 
ever, there are, for individual cases, or for 
certain places or times, other rules that are 
valuable. But what these are must be left to 
the individual conscience. The church may 
advise or recommend certain lines of conduct, 
but has no right whatever to command in this 
respect. For the church stands as Christ's 
vicegerent. When it expels a member, that 
is equivalent, as far as lies in its power, to 
the cutting off of the soul from Christ. Such 
weighty responsibility it certainly has no right 
to assume except for a direct violation of 
God's revealed law. The apostle Paul him- 
self would not speak authoritatively concern- 
ing those who ate meat that had been offered 
to idols, a practice in those days of an exceed- 
ingly questionable and dangerous kind; but 
he led the Corinthian church back to the broad 
principles of Christian brotherliness, argued 
with them, advised them, quoted his own ex- 
ample and opinion, and — left it to their own 
consciences. ''Let not your good be evil 
spoken of,'' he says. ''Put a stumbling block 

64 



DYNAMICS 

in the way of none, neither of the Jews, nor of 
the Greeks, nor of the Church of God. * ' This 
broad principle he leaves for their own appli- 
cation. If we, these days, consider it unsafe 
to let the individual apply a principle for him- 
self, how is it the apostle was not governed 
by this fear? And if he chose the danger of 
allowing the individual to abuse his liberty, 
rather than the danger of laying down a rule, 
which he was undoubtedly importuned to do, 
and which it certainly seemed could have been 
only beneficial, yet which he saw to be the 
entering wedge of a new legalism, we may 
certainly profit by his example. 

The case stands much the same with re- 
wards and penalties. Men already know 
that a life of holiness and sublimity will bring 
joy incomparable, that it is better to do right 
than wrong, and that sin is misery. The Gos- 
pel comes not to magnify this fear and hope 
by unfolding the scenes of a future life ; but 
it comes to utilize this abiding sense of hope 
and fear by the "good news'' that it can give 
men a ne-^ power whereby they may live high 
lives. The Gospel is not an extension of the 
law; it is the energizing of the law. There* 
fore, preaching the consequences of sin or of 
righteousness is not preaching the Gospel, 
but the law; it is simply using the same old 
motives of selfish gain or ease that already 

65 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

actuate men in their struggle for profit and 
place and the gratification of appetite. But 
the Gospel is preached when we go beyond 
the matter of any reward or punishment for 
our deeds, and preach the possibility of a to- 
tally different kind of life; not in appeal to 
consequences, but *'in the demonstration of 
the Spirit and of power.** It is not declaring 
what will happen to us, but it is declaring 
Christ. Hope and fear are merely human 
emotions; to expect to rise by these into the 
new life is to think we may lift ourselves by 
our boot straps. God's person is a new force, 
not of ourselves, coming in upon us from 
above; it is another and higher power than 
ourselves, and by it alone can we be raised 
into the kingdom of heaven. Hope and fear 
are also schoolmasters ; therefore, to make us 
sensible of the need of another kind of power. 

The influence of God imparted to us by the 
Christ-Spirit is the potency by which we are 
changed. 

To put it in a nutshell, the law consists of 
two parts : the rule and the penalty. The rule 
is of value to show us whether or not we have 
the right power of life, and also, by prac- 
ticing the rule, we put ourselves in a proper 
condition for developing this power. As the 
power increases, the rule falls away in impor- 
tance. The penalty serves to show us the 

66 



DYNAMICS 

emptiness and sorrow of life without this 
inward power. It should work, not to make 
us accept the Gospel from fear of the penalty, 
but to accept the Gospel to escape the fear. 
Fear is not the motive, but the motive is a 
desire to escape from that low slavery of a 
life that is ruled by fear. Becoming a Chris- 
tian is not ''escaping the penalty,'* so much as 
it is coming out from "the spirit of bondage 
unto fear*' into "the spirit of sonship, 
whereby we cry, Abba, Father." 

Even if hell be a punishment, heaven be- 
yond cannot be a reward. You cannot pay 
for good work ; it has no wage ; it is its own 
wage. Virtue is so infinitely imponderable 
with vice that it is called its own reward. 
Nowhere in the Bible is bliss beyond alluded 
to as the pay of Christians. "Great is your 
reward in heaven"; but there is a vast differ- 
ence between reward in heaven and heaven as 
a reward. The parable of the laborers in the 
vineyard was given purposely to show the 
fallacy of this wage-theory;^ for the last 
received a penny even as the first; there is no 
distribution of prizes to doers of good deeds; 
"Man, who made Me a judge or a divider 
over you?" But while "the wages of sin is 
death, the gift of God is eternal life."* 

^ Read connectively Matt, xix, 27 to xx. 16. 

' Rom. vi. 23. " The wages of unrighteousness.* ' 2 Pet. ii. 15. 

67 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

When heaven and hell are made to be the 
Christianas reward and punishment, then we 
have left utterly the realm of the Gospel and 
descended again into the domain of the 
Mosaic law. But, it may be answered, we 
do not make these future states to be the 
reward and punishment of our deeds here, our 
moralities, but of our rejection or acceptance 
of Christ. If anything, this is worse. Mak- 
ing them the prizes of conduct might increase 
morality, which is a good thing; but making 
them the prizes of ''accepting Christ" directly 
discourages morality and instigates hypoc- 
risy. For if heavenly bliss in the next world 
is to be gained '*not by works" but by some- 
thing else, what is that something else? It is 
replied that it is conversion and a life of faith. 
Now, while this is true, in a way, yet the fact 
that we are to seek conversion and belief for 
pay inevitably debauches the conception of 
what conversion and belief are. The power- 
ful commercial spirit is aroused to get this pay 
for the least work ; to secure the reward for 
the least possible outlay of effort. Thus we 
set the theologians to work at defining the 
essentials; we want to know what is absolutely 
essential to salvation (/. e.^ from future tor- 
ment). Now, define the essentials as we may, 
we can never define them into life.^ And 

* •' If there had been a law given which could have given life, 
verily righteousness should have been by the law." Gal. iii. 21 

68 



DYNAMICS 

what is the actual, practical result? It is 
that very many professed Christians have 
substituted an act or certain condition of feelings 
called conversion, and an intellectual accept- 
ance of a certain credal formula, called belief, j 
for the morality of the Mosaic law, and expect 
heaven for this^ exactly as the Jews of old 
expected temporal prosperity for that. '* Ex- 
cept ye be converted'* — and did not we on a 
certain day of a certain year J experience a 
change of heart at a revival? "He^thatbe- 
lieveth shall be saved" — and do we not nod 
the head and^say Amen to all in the Bible and 
the pulpit? And all the while, thousands of 
us know nothing of the Christ-life as an ele- 
vating, transforming, eternal power within! 
Alas! we are still under the law, only we have 
put an artificial, theologic "essential act*' in 
the place of Mosaic righteousness. Because 
that act has something about Christ in it, 
we think it is Christian. *'This persuasion 
Cometh not of Him that calleth you,'*^ it 
comes from the flesh. '* Christ is become of 
no effect unto you, whosoever are saved by 
the law (by the legal effect of an essential act) ; 
yet are fallen from grace* '^ — fallen down from 
the high life, the life more abundant, into the 
pit of barter and sale, trading a pitiful 

» Gal. V. 8. * Gal. v. 4. 



69 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

**gospel deed'* for a *'life to come. '*^ If such 
there be who read this, '*! bow my knees unto 
the Father that He would grant you His Spirit 
in the inner man ; that Christ may dwell in 
your hearts by faith ; that ye may be able to 
comprehend what is the breadth and length 
and depth and height, and to know the love 
of Christ, which passeth knowledge; that ye 
may be filled with all the fullness of God!'*'* 

The keen world has not failed to detect a 
strain of baseness in such religion as most of 
us display and many ministers preach. 

" The fear o* hell's a hangman's whip 
To hold the wretch in order," 

sang Burns. Side by side with our church 
life, but outside of it, viewing it with a more or 
less good-natured contempt, there has grown 
up a class of people who are clean and hon- 
orable, with a high tone and chivalrous senti- 
ment, a class that is composed of those whom 
Charles Kingsley would call ** natural king- 
dom-of-heavenites. *' It is this class which has 
quietly assumed the moral leadership of civili- 
zation. It is their sentiments that are held up 
for admiration in current fiction. Mankind 
has turned to this refined and delicate hea- 

* " For in Christianity there is no other essential than faith 
which worketh by love." Gal. v. 6, paraphrased. 

« Eph. iii. 14-21. 

70 



DYNAMICS 

thenism to pay there its choicest tribute of 
imitation. In fine, it is the Gentleman, not 
the Christian, the world respects most. Why 
is this subtle discounting of Christianity, 
why indeed, unless it be that the preaching 
of rewards and punishments has drawn into 
the profession of this faith a great swarm of 
people who are aliens from its sublime spirit? 
The mediaeval church thought it was a fine 
thing to see numbers thronging into her courts 
as a result of her proclamation of heaven 
gained and hell avoided by **belief"; the 
leaders of the Reformation shook themselves 
partly free from the superstitious practices of 
the old church, but not quite free ; they still 
retained many heathen doctrines and forms, 
and among them this legalizing preachment 
of rewards and punishments as motives, 
although for penance and absolution they 
substituted '* justification by faith." 

This brings us directly to the question: the 
preaching of heaven and hell as the motive 
force in religion, whence originated it? It 
did not arise among the apostles and Christ, 
as we have seen. When the disciples, stub- 
bornly clinging to the ''reward'* idea, asked 
what they, who had left all and followed Him, 
should have. He did not dilate upon their 
bliss in the next world, but simply said, " Ai)d 

71 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

in the world to come eternal life/'^ and imme- 
diately told the parable of the laborers in the 
vineyard, to which I have previously alluded. 
When Paul spake before Festus and Agrippa 
as when he preached at Athens, it was the 
resurrection that smote in upon his auditors. 
Follow his whole career through the Acts and 
Epistles,^ and you will see his constant theme 
to be a living, risen, saving Christ, who puts in 
men a new Spirit^ exalts them into a higher, 
diviner life. But when in after centuries the 
power of the Roman bishop began to predom- 
inate, and when the lust of members and 
temporal display and political power crept 
into the church, more and more concessions 
were made to heathenism, in order to induce 
the pagans to submit the more readily to the 
church.^ Now almost every heathen religion 
luxuriates in descriptions of the future world. 
While the Bible speaks sparingly and only in 

* Mark x. 30 and Luke xviii. 30 use this lang^uage, but Matt. 
xix. 29 has, *• and shall inherit eternal life." 

» Acts xxvi. 23-24. Those who wish to investigate this further 
are referred to Acts y. 42; viii. 35; x. 36; xiii. 38; xvii. 3; xviii. 5; 



also Acts ii. 32; iv. i; i\. ir 33; v. 32; xiii. 33; xvii. 3, 18. 33; xxiii. 
6; xxiv. i}-2i; xxv. 19; xxvi. 6, 8, 23, etc., the former showing how 
the apostles preached Christy the latter how they preached Christ 



risen. There were no exploitations of heaven and hell. Further 
instances will be giv( in chapter live. 

* *' The practical purpose for which the church had been estab- 
lished or for which Christianity existed, was not, to the Latin 
mind, primarily an ethical one; even ♦ * * * the morality 
which the gospel enjoined was not an end in itself, but a means 
to a remoter end— the salvation of the soul from the consequences 
of sin in the future world. The doctrine of endless punishment 
for all who rejected the claims of Christ must have been from an 
early period tlie underlying belief which gave the strongest sanc- 
tion to the church's authority." A. V. G. Allen, ** Continuity of 
Christian Thought," p. 121. 

72 



DYNAMICS 

hints and figures of the details of the life to 
come, the Koran has hells blazing with every 
refinement of cruelty, and heavens crowded 
with sensuous delights. Bear in mind that 
the rewards and punishments of the Old Tes- 
tament were earthly, and that in the New 
Testament the future state is not exploited 
as a motive, and you will see that the custom 
of making hell's horrors and heaven's glory 
Gospel motives originated not in the Bible at 
all, but was borrowed from paganism by the 
monks at the darkest period of the church's 
history.^ 

And why was it borrowed? Simply because 
the church leaders must have some motive, 
and not having the real. Gospel motive — to 
wit, "the/^^^r of an endless life," ^ they took 
the heathen motive, the imaginations of an 
endless life. The preaching of death's ter- 
rors and allurements will always be morbid, 
and makes a gloomy, unwholesome religious 
life. ^''Memento mori'' is not a Christian 
motto. We are to remember life, not death.^ 
We are not put here merely to prepare for 
eternity, but to begin a high life that stretches 
out into eternity. This life is not so much a 

* " Christianity (under the papacy) approximated in its inmost 
principle to Islam." Ibid, p. 171. 

2 See Heb. vii. 16. 

^ " The more of present life we have, the more shall we believe 
in the future." James Freeman Clarke, " Common Sense in Re- 
ligion," p. 197. 

73 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

state of probation as of opportunity. The 
triumph of the Gospel waits for men who shall 
show forth its sublime possibilities. The 
world waits for the church to show it that 
glorious "life more abundant,** ^ full of hope, 
joy, peace, and "all the fullness of God." 
Civilization is hungry, lean, and empty; 
despair is in its literature, ennui is in its social 
life, fevered restlessness in its business. It 
craves "life, more life.'* It uses increasingly 
more alcoholic stimulants to whip the tired 
pulses into a semblance of enthusiasm. It 
refuses longer to be coaxed or scared by future 
visions; it would rather go to hell hilariously 
than go to heaven by humdrum and narrow- 
ness and drudgery. The present age resem- 
bles that Augustan period of which Matthew 
Arnold wrote: 

" On that hard pagan world disgust 
And secret loathing fell; 
Deep weariness and sated lust 
Made human life a hell." 

This life is so paltry, so hemmed and balked 
by limitations, that it is not worth living, if 
we accept the pictures given by Eliot or Zola, 
Hall Caine or Nordau.^ The time is ripe for 

' *' I am come that they might have life, and that they might 
have it more abundantly." John x. lo. 

* '* In novels—like those of Zola and Maupassant and the later 
works of Thomas Hardy, skepticism speaks with a harsh and 
menacing accent of the emptiness of all life and the futility of all 
endeavor. * * * Far apart as Madame Bovary and Cosmopolis^ 

74 



DYNAMICS 

a new manifestation of Christly life such as 
amazed and thrilled the apostolic age. Not 
hotter hells, nor more scintillating heavens, 
but lives, lives, lives, carrying about **an 
exceeding weight of glory," lives transfigured, 
inspired, filled with enthusiasm, displaying 
that **blessedness" of which the young Mes- 
siah spake in His first message. Such life is 
the real potency of our faith. Lacking this, it 
is useless for a feeble and doting church to 
turn to ghostly policemen to enforce what 
she cannot win. 

The objection that may arise to this view 
is that it does not sufficiently emphasize the 
sinfulness of sin. It seems to be taken for 
granted by many persons that unless we posi- 
tively assert endless punishment for sin and 
endless certain bliss for righteousness, we be- 
little the difference between the two. But 
such objectors forget that it is not tht penalty 
that is to convince the world of sin, but it is 
the Holy Spirit^ and He is to do it by showing 
Christ to the world.^ These objectors are 

ProblemaHsche Naturen and Middlemarch and Robert Elsmere. 




One epoch of history is unmistakably^ in its decline, and 
another is announcing its approach. There is a sound of rending 
in every tradition, and it is as though the morrow would not link 
itself with to-day. Things as they are totter and plunge, and 
they are suffered to reel and fall, because man is weary, and there 
is no faith that it is worth an effort to uphold them." Max Nor- 
dau, ' Degeneration," p. S- 

' John xvi. 8. Horace Bushnell (" Christ and His Salvation," 
p. ii6) has a masterly sermon on " Conviction of Sin by the Cross.'* 

75 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

quick to cry danger whenever such theory is 
advanced; they fear we are departing from 
the faith and removing the ancient landmarks. 
Upon this point I cannot do better than quote 
a clear putting of the case by Professor A. V. 
G. Allen: *'It is suggestive to note how it 
[this objection] turns up in history when any 
teaching arises which contradicts the tradi- 
tional methods of dealing with the problem of 
human evil. To the enemies of Christ it ap- 
peared as though the Saviour Himself were 
relaxing the bonds of moral order when He 
sat down to eat with publicans and sinners, 
or when he dismissed the woman who had 
sinned with no reproof, but with the gentle 
injunction, 'Go, and sin no more.' It seemed 
to the hostile Judaism tracking the footsteps 
of St. Paul as if his doctrine of justification 
by faith were not only deficient in its estimate 
of sin, but as if it put a premium upon sin — 
'Shall we continue in sin that grace may 
abound?' It seemed to the heathen mind, 
judging from Celsus' attack upon Christianity, 

Perhaps the gist of it may be embpdied in this quotation: *'In 
the days of the law^ men had their visitations of remorse, respect- 
ing this or that wrong act; but I do not recollect, even under the 
prophets, those great preachers of the law, and sharpest and most 
terrible sifters of transgression, a single instance, where a soul is 
so broken or distressed by the conviction of its own bad state 
under sin, as to ask what it must do to be saved — the very thing 
which many thousands did, on the day of Pentecost, and in the 
weeks that followed, and have been doing even until now. So 
different a matter is it to have rules in a book^ or rules in a con- 
science, from having them embodied into power^ through a per- 
son, or personal character." 

76 



DYNAMICS 

that the doctrine of forgiveness was shallow 
and immoral, that in order to overcome evil it 
must be held that forgiveness was impossible, 
and that every sin must reap its penalty 
according to irrevocable law. It seemed to 
the excited mind of Latin Christendom as if 
the methods of Luther and Calvin, in dealing 
with sin, were of a nature to undo the sanc- 
tions of morality and to promote unbridled 
libertinism.'' ^ 

We conclude, then, that the sole legitimate 
Gospel motive is the personality of God. We 
are to come under this influence ourselves, 
and through us others are to be likewise 
brought under the same developing, redeem- 
ing power. 

* •* Continuity of Christian Thought," p. 15. 



SUGGESTIONS 

The Gospel changed the system of rewards and 
punishments from statutory to natural law. 

The chief difference between Judaism and Chris- 
tianity is the motive. 

God's object for us is higher than to make us do 
right; it is to make us be right. 

There is no list of rules so onerous that men will 
not prefer it to personal responsibility. 

The design of a church should be to develop, not 
to rule. 

The final product of even the most perfect law 
was the Pharisee. 

A pledge or vow is either to do a right or a wrong 
thing; none should vow to do wrong; whoever will not 
do right without a vow is not likely to keep a vow; 
therefore swear not at all, but let your yea be yea, 
and your nay be nay. 

Not everything is Christian that alludes to Christ. 

In proportion as we lose ^^XJn^ power of an endless 
life," we lean upon the imaginations of an endless life. 

The Christianity of the past has successfully taught 
the world its lesson of the emptiness of this life; it is 
for the Christianity of the future to teach the world 
the fullness of this life. 

Truth leads to expediency, but expediency never 
leads to truth. 

True faith is faith in the truth. 



CHAPTER IV 

ETERNAL LIFE 

Life Influenced by God's Personality Becomes Eternal 
in Quality 



"This is Life Eternal, that they might know Thee, 
the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast 
sent." — Jesus, John xvii. 3. 

" * La vie est vaine: 
Un peu d amour 
Un peu de haine — 
Et puis — bon jour! 

*La vie est breve: 
Un peu d'espoir, 
Un peu de reve. . . . 
Et puis — bon soir!' 
"The above is a terse and true criticism of this life 
without hope of a future one. Is it satisfactory?" — 
George John Romanes, Thoughts on Religion, p. 163. 

" Each natural agent works but to this end — 
To render that it works on like itself." 
George Chapman, Bussy UAmbois, Act IIL, Sc. i. 

"To love her was a liberal education." 

Richard Steele, Tatler, No. 49. 

"For God, who commanded the light to shine out 
of darkness, is He who hath shined in our hearts, to 
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God 
in the face of Jesus Christ." — Paul, 2 Cor. iv. 6. 



CHAPTER IV 

It would not be proper to pursue the trend 
of thought taken in this essay without endeav- 
oring to comprehend clearly what eternal life 
is. It will not suffice merely to say that it 
begins this side of the grave. But we ask, 
What is it? how can we secure it? how may 
it be known? why is it called eternal life? It 
is, of course, impossible to define, or Christ 
Himself would have defined it. But it may be 
helpful to us to see why it cannot be defined, 
and how, although not definable^ it is perfectly 
C07nprehensible, 

It is impossible to define eternal life, simply 
because it is a condition of our personality, 
wrought in us by the personality of God. To 
define it would be therefore to define man and 
God, the two ever-impenetrable mysteries. 
A man begins eternal life when he begins to 
live the life which Christ led. Eternal life is 
the Christ-life. We obtain this by being 
brought into the personal influence of Jesus. 
It is illustrated by the familiar examples of 
personal influence known to us all. One can- 
not live with a strong, rich nature, such as 

8i 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

that of Arnold of Rugby, or Mark Hopkins, 
or some good teacher or minister whom each 
of us recalls from his own past, without 
insensibly becoming like him, partaking of his 
views of things, entertaining his sentiments, 
repeating as though original his little ways 
and sayings — that is to say, he ''follows him/* 
This throws some light upon what Jesus 
meant when He called men, saying, "Follow 
Me. ''^ Now, this influence, better than any- 
thing else, explains the process of salvation. 
Of course, the effect of Christ's companion- 
ship upon us is as much greater than the 
effect of men's example and association as He 
is greater than they; but in kind it is identical. 
The reader will find this idea diffused through 
the whole New Testament. It is Christ's per- 
sonality that saves, not anything apart from 
Himself, which He does for us, and because 
of which God imputes salvation to us. The 
whole Gospel is the gospel of a person, not of 
a plan. In searching the Scriptures relative 
to this point, let us see, first, what was said 
about Him; second, what He did; and third, 
what He said of Himself. 



* Matt. iv. 19; viii. 22; ix. 9; xvi. 24: *' If any man serve Me» 
let him follow Me." John xii. 26. '* Serve," literally, to wait 
upon at table, hence to be of use to ; " follow," to keep in com- 
pany with, go about with; hence, '* If any man would be of service 
to Me and help Me work, he can do it only by preparing himself 
for this by My companionship.'^ Follow means more than imi- 
tate, the root idea in it is association and companionship more 
than copying an example. 

82 



ETERNAL LIFE 

And first, what was said about Him and 
His work by the apostles? In the introduc- 
tion to his gospel John says: *'In Him was 
life, and the life was the light of men*' ;^ thus, 
under the similitude of light, describing the 
mode by which He was to save men, His 
character shining upon their characters. 
John the Baptist said of Him: '*0f His full- 
ness have we all received, and grace for 
grace'* ;^ we are saved by partaking of His 
nature. The angel said to Joseph concerning 
the child to be born of Mary: ''And thou 
shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save 
His people from their sins*';' He Himself 
shall save them, not that they were to be 
saved on account of Him. To separate God 
from Christ in the atonement is vicious to 
correct thought; whatever our creed maybe 
we must not make salvation an act of God with 
which Jesus had nothing to do but to supply a 
sin-offering; for '*God was in Christ, recon- 
ciling the world unto Himself.*'* In saving 



' John i. 4. Christ is called the Light also in John i. q. ("Light 
that lighteth every man.") John viii. 12; ix. 5; xii. 46. ("I am 
the Light of the world") John iii. 19. C* This is, etc., that Light 
is come into the world and men loved darkness rather,'* etc.) So 
He was to be " a Light to lighten the Gentiles," Luke ii. 32. Re- 
markably in point is 2 Cor. iv. 6: "For God, who commanded 
the light to shine out of darkness, is He who hath shined in our 
hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in 
the face ofjesus Christ.'* 

' John i. 16. Christ's work in us is pictured as a full vessel 
filling empty vessels, also in Eph. i. 23 (" the fullness of Him that 
filleth all ") ; iii. 19 (" filled with all the fullness of God "), etc. 

* Matt. i. 21. * 2 Cor. v. 19, 

83 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

men **I and My Father are one'* ; ^ one of the 
Gods did not die to appease the other God. 
The atonement was part of the mysterious 
way which God took to bring Himself to bear 
upon the characters of men.^ 

The phraseology of Paul is significant in 
this respect. No man made so much of the 
personality of Jesus as he. Using necessarily 
the Jewish phraseology of the sacrificial cere- 
mony, he yet suffused it with the divine Per- 
son. Paul's passionate appeals to the world 
were not to win it to a wondrous scheme, a 
marvelous contrivance or syllogism, by which 
men could escape hell and get to heaven; but 
ever since he saw the face of that Man on 
the road to Damascus, who said to him, *'I 
am Jesus whom thou persecutest, *' his one 
burning refrain was Christ. He did not 
preach about Him, but he preached Him. He 
did not preach the atonement made by Christ; 
he preached *' Christ crucified. " ^ The burden 
of his life was not any plan of salvation, but 
he declared, "I am determined not to know 
anything among you, save Jesus Christ."* So 
absorbed was he in his Master that he said, 
'*For to me to live is Christ. ''^ He intro- 

* John X. 30. 

* See explanation at more length in the chapter on the *' Light 
of the Cross." 

^ I Cor. i. 23. * I Cor. ii. 2. ^ Phil. i. 21. 

84 



ETERNAL LIFE 

duced the novel phrase, '*in Christ/*^ speak- 
ing of the saints as those in Christ; also its 
complement, ''Christ in you'';^ nothing but 
the interplay of personalities explains such 
language. His assurance was not because he 
had accepted a divine plan, but "there is 
therefore now no condemnation to them that 
are in Christ,'' ^ All else in life seemed of lit- 
tle worth, for he esteemed the world but 
dung that he might win Christ.* All the 
learning he had gathered at the feet of Gama- 
liel he threw contemptuously from him 
*'that he might know Him and the power of 
His resurrection."^ His theory of how the 
atonement takes away sin is not that it is by 
any substitutional process alone, not by any 
syllogistic reasoning, but because Christ has 
passed on through death, and now lives to 
raise all men up into a higher life. As he 
says to the Corinthians, ''He died for all, that 
they which live should not henceforth live 
unto themselves, but unto Him that died for 
them, and rose again. Therefore, if any man 
be in Christ, he is a new creature ; old things 
are passed away; behold, all things are be- 
come new." ® 

Notice, in the second place, what Jesus did, 

^ Rom. xvi. 2-7, 9, etc. * Phil. iii. 8. 

2 Rom. viii. 10, etc. * Phil. iii. 10. 

^ Rom. viii. i. ® 2 Cor. v. 15-20. 

8s 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

and how He helped men while He was in the 
body. And observe particularly that it was 
not by imparting information to them, so 
much as it was by bringing them into contact 
with Himself. When He healed the sick it 
made no difference about their thought or 
feelings; all they needed was "faith,** or that 
attitude of mind which made them willing to 
allow Him to work in them. Their state or 
opinions had nothing to do with His healing; 
He was all. It was not any process that 
cured, it was Himself. When a peculiarly 
stubborn case was told Him, He only said, 
*'Bring him to Me,'' ^ It was His touch, His 
hand. His word that saved their miserable 
bodies. That is to say. His works of power 
were all works showing the efficacy of His 
person^ and not of any art or knowledge He 
possessed. This is most clearly seen in the 
case of the woman who touched the hem of 
His garment.^ To this day that instance 
remains as a type of His method. His tri- 
umph is to be only the spreading influence of 
His personality. 

Note, again, what He said of Himself. He 
did not speak of Himself as forming a chief 
link in a plan to purge the world of sin. He 
did not regard Himself as one of the wheels 
in the divine mechanical scheme of redemp- 

* Matt. xvii. 17. * Matt. ix. 20. 

86 



ETERNAL LIFE 

£ 

tion. The saving of the world was to be a 
personal matter performed directly by Him- 
self. He, dying, was to save, not His death 
was to save.^ "And I, if I be lifted up*' — 
not My teachings nor My ideas and pre- 
cepts — '*shall draw all men unto Me" — not 
unto righteousness nor unto heaven, but 
*'unto Me.'* 2 ''I am the Way, the Truth, 
and the Life,'* He said. *'There is no Way 
to be saved ; I am the Way. I do not come 
to impart to men a system containing the truth 
about God ; I am the Truth. I do not die to 
enable you to get life eternal after death ; I 
am the Life. The true Way, the true knowl- 
edge of Truth, the joy of a full Life, are only 
in proportion as you come under My influ- 
ence. Do you want to eat the fruit of the 
tree of life and live always? I am the bread 
of life; eat Me and you shall never die. "^ 
"I am the vine, ye are the branches." 
'* Abide in Me, and I in you."* He did not 
tell them to do thus and so, and they should 
do great good ; all their doing was to be use- 
less except as under His influence; '* without 
Me ye can do nothing."^ A philosopher 
would have said, ''Follow Truth"; but He 
said, ''Follow Me; I am the Truth." When 

^ John xii. 32. ' John xiv. 6. 

3 John vi. 31-59 inclusive, discourse on bread of life. 

* John XV. 1-8. ^ John xv. 5. 

87 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

the Holy Ghost shall come to you, "He shall 
testify of Me/' ^ "The operation of the Holy 
Spirit will be but a continuation of the opera- 
tion of My personal influence; it will be 
Myself, in a form suited for universal work- 
ing among all men."^ "It is expedient for 
you that I go away, for if I go away, / will 
come again^ and receive you unto Myself*';^ 
but I will come as the Comforter, not the 
bodily, local Christ, but the spiritual, world- 
wide Christ, the immanent God, standing and 
knocking at the door of all men's hearts. 

Such is the tone of Jesus' talk of Himself. 
That this should harmonize with any theory 
of Him that considered Him as merely an ob- 
ject to appease divine wrath, has only to be 
stated for us to see how absurd it is. His 
theory can only be that eternal life is the kind 
of life God leads; men can get this life be- 
cause they are God's sons, they are akin to 
Him, their natures bear such resemblance to 
His that they can rise to share His concerns; 
they can get this life only by knowing God 
and coming under His influence; God was 
manifested in Jesus Christ purposely to enable 
men to thus come to know Him and to be 
exalted by Him. 

^ John XV. 26. 

2 " He shall not speak of Himself: He shall glorify Me: for He 
shall receive of Mine and show it unto you." John xvi. 13, 15. 

^ John xvi. 7 and xiv. 3. 

88 



ETERNAL LIFE 

It may be answered that this gives no satis- 
factory theory of the atonement; it does not 
show how God pardons men for Christ's sake. 
It is just because this view of the case implies 
no theory of an automatic, self-operative 
atonement that it seems likely to be the true 
one. Perhaps nothing has done so much 
harm to the religion of Jesus as the attempts 
to systematize it. It is essentially non-sys- 
tematic. It is the religion of a Person, and 
personality, while perfectly comprehensible, 
is evasive and undefinable. When you reduce 
Christianity to a series of propositions, it is 
no more Christianity, but something which 
differs from it as a marble bust, no matter 
how perfect, from the breathing form. When 
you pluck apart the lily you have gained some 
information, but the lily is gone; to obtain 
your knowledge you took its life; and God 
made the lily to lade the breeze with perfume 
and to bear seed, and not to gratify your 
speculative craving for knowledge. So it is 
with the life and work of Jesus. The moment 
you separate His life from His death, and 
assign to this one function and to that another, 
you have ruined the whole effect of Him. 
His death has absolutely no value to human- 
ity apart from Himself. The saving power of 
Jesus abode not in anything He did or suf- 
fered, but in Him. All His words and deeds, 

89 



1 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

His death and His example, are dry, useless 
things apart from the real, living, present 
Christ-person Himself. The theology of 
Christianity forever abides in Christ's own 
person, and cannot be got out of Him. There 
are no "truths'* of this religion; there is but 
the truth, that is Christ. 

The doctrines of Christianity cannot be 
tabulated and arranged in books, because 
when you separate any doctrine from His per- 
sonality it is not true any more; you have 
taken the image of the doctrine away, but you 
have left the truth with Him. That explains 
why so many doctrines seem sometimes true 
and sometimes false ; they are only true when 
taken in connection with His personality. 
For instance, what is conviction of sin? It is 
seeing Christ. Men are not, as a rule, con- 
victed of sin by looking at themselves, nor by 
being told how evil they are, nor by revealing 
the punishment for sin; but only by being 
brought into contact with His Spirit. So 
repentance is false when merely a reformation 
or a remorse for evil done ; true repentance is 
caused by coming under the influence of 
Jesus. That was the genuine sorrow for sin 
which brought forth fruit unto life, when 
Peter caught that one look of His Master's 
face and straightway went out and wept bit- 
terly ; Judas's repentance was the wrong kind, 

90 



ETERNAL LIFE 

the sorrow unto death; the one was true be- 
cause it was repentance with Him, the other 
false because it was repentance without Him. 
Likewise conversion, if a change we note in 
ourselves alone, may be a passing emotion; 
but if it is the change brought about by begin- 
ning to know Him, it is true ; false apart from 
Him, true with Him. Justification, as a legal 
condition before God because you have be- 
lieved or done something or other, is false; it 
is true only as a conviction that now He abides 
in you, and he in whom He dwells must surely 
be accepted of God. Adoption is becoming 
His brother. His child. Sanctification is 
experiencing His work in your character. 
Regeneration is the new life and thoughts and 
hopes and longings He always brings with 
Him into the heart. Cleansing is the fleeing 
of all inward impurity from before His face. 
Without Him we can do nothing. So His 
Gospel is to be preached, not taught; we 
preach a person^ and teach a doctrine. It is to 
be heralded, not explained. *'Ye shall be 
witnesses of Me,'*^ He said, not that we 
should be propagandists of His doctrine. 

Why, therefore, do we spend so much time 
in urging men to obtain all these various 
blessings? Why pray for a blessing? Were 
the apostles in the habit of doing so? Can 

* Acts i. 8. " They overcame by the word of their testimony." 
Rev. xii. ii. 

91 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

you point to one instance in the New Testa- 
ment where the apostles, or Jesus Himself, 
led souls through all this programme of succes- 
sive phases we have these days marked out — 
conviction, repentance, conversion, justifica- 
tion, etc.? No, you answer; but we have 
selected the scattered instances and tabulated 
and arranged them. But if they were to be 
so systematized, why did not the inspired 
writers do it? Simply because as systematized 
they are not any more true; we have turned 
from Christ to a system. Pray not for a 
blessing; pray for the Blesser. You do not 
want conversion; you need the Converter. 
Do not seek sanctification; seek the Sanctifier. 
There is but one true Gospel doctrine to 
preach to lost men, and that is "Come to 
Jesus." As I heard David, the Tamil evan- 
gelist, say: *'Why do you search for gold nug- 
gets, when you may have the gold mine? 
Why do you want bank checks, when you may 
own the bank?'* Away with this petty logic- 
mongering, this mapping out of the soul! 
Many have been in despair because they could 
not recognize the successive states in them- 
selves. They have been told to repent; they 
try to repent; then they examine themselves 
carefully to see if they have genuine repent- 
ance. When they think they have, then they 
are next told to have faith; this they also try, 

92 



ETERNAL LIFE 

again scrutinizing themselves to see if the 
marks of faith are in them, being assured that 
unless they find faith in themselves they can- 
not be saved. And so on, through the whole 
"evangelicar* process, they go, endeavoring 
to attain each state successively, looking 
carefully within to see if they have suc- 
ceeded. 

Many, in spite of the mistaken system, do 
obtain Christ, but many others obtain a mere 
mental satisfaction with themselves, a convic- 
tion that they are secure of being *'at last 
saved in heaven," because they have done 
what they were bidden; but many others, 
alas! feel that they have been juggling with 
their emotions, and being unwilling to rest 
their hope upon syllogisms they turn away in 
despondency. And how very many professed 
Christians to-day have no real confidence and 
cloudless assurance toward God ! 

To avoid all this we must be determined to 
*'know nothing save Jesus Christ.'* Repent- 
ance (turning about) is seeking to find Him. 
Conviction is wrought by getting a first touch 
of His influence; as Peter, when the divinity 
of his Master burst on him, cried out, "Depart 
from me, for I am an evil man, O Lord!'*^ 
Conversion: **If any man be in Christy he is a 
new creature."^ Justification: *' There is 

* Luke V. 8. * 2 Cor. v. 17. 

93 



^./ 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

therefore now no condemnation to them which 
are in Christ Jesus,'' ^ Adoption: "Joint 
heirs with Jesus Christ. * ' ^ Regeneration : 
** Quickened together with Him,''^ Forgive- 
ness, pardon: "Blotting out the handwriting 
of ordinances that was against us, and took 
it out of the way, nailing it to His cross. ' ' * 
Consecration: "Your life \^ hid with Christ m 
God/'' Peace: "For He is our peace. ''^ 
Life: "-Christ, Who is our life.'* ' Sanctifica- 
tion: "Ye are in Christ, who of God is made 
unto us sanctification. '' ^ Love: ''^ Herein is 
love; not that we loved God, but that He 
loved us,''^ Death: "Whosoever believeth in 
Me shall never die. "^^ Resurrection: ''''I am 
the resurrection."" Judgment: "He that 
believeth on Him that sent Me shall not come 
into condemnation."^^ (This is the same 
word elsewhere used for judgment. )^^ The 
hereafter: "That where I am there ye may be 
also. "^* Waste no thought nor anxiety, 
therefore, concerning these different matters. 
Find Christ and you have found all. "He is 

^ Rom. viii. i. ^ Col. iii. 4. 

* Rom. viii. 17. ^ i Cor. i. 30. 

3 Col. ii. 13; Eph. ii. 5. » i John iv. 10. 

* Col. ii. 14. '° John xi. 26. 

* Col. iii. 3. ^* John xi. 25. 
« Eph. ii. 14. " John V. 24. 
*3 As, " Reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment," 2 Pet. 



*•* AS, •• Keserve tne unjust unto tne aay 01 juaffment," 2 ret. 
ii. q: " Once to die, but after this the judgment," Heb. ix. 27. So 
that, whatever the "judgment" may be, those who are in Christ 

94 



shall not come into it 
^* John xiv. 3, 



ETERNAL LIFE 

all, and in all.'** These blessings are but 
phases of His personal work in us. 

Above all things look no more into your 
hearts. Cease morbid self -scrutiny. '*Look 
up, not down; look out, not in." Look to 
Him, not to self. In me is food for despair 
only ; in Him is hope. Whether I have passed 
through this list of orthodox prescribed states 
I never have been able to tell ; neither does 
it concern me; but rather let me *'win Christ, 
and be found in Him, not having mine own 
righteousness, but that which is through the 
faith of Christ, that I may know Him and the 
power of His resurrection!*'^ Self -scrutiny 
without Christ is ruinous ; that way madness 
lies, and blackness and sin and suicide. 

We see, then, that the sum of Christianity 
is the personal influence of Christ; the sum of 
religion is the personal influence of Deity. 
And personal influence was the only means 
Jesus used to make disciples. 

If it be said that it is the Holy Ghost that 
is to be the agent of the Gospel's work among 
men, the answer is that the Holy Ghost is 
but the one God, the same who is Christ; the 
Holy Ghost is the universal God, and His 
influence is yet the personal influence of 
Christ, who was *'the fullness of the Godhead 
bodily."' This Holy Spirit works only 

* Col. iii. II. • Phil. iii. 9, 10. * Col. ii. 9. 

95 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

through men, not coming as an extraneous 
something down upon the isolated individual. 
Paul must be taken to Ananias before he can 
receive the Spirit. The apostles imparted Him 
by laying on of hands. Apart from humanity 
the Holy Spirit means nothing to us; apart 
from the Holy Spirit humanity means noth- 
ing, it is dead. Apart from Jesus' person- 
ality the Holy Spirit means nothing; He does 
not work at all except through the person of 
Christ. So apart from the Holy Spirit, Christ 
is nothing; that is, a mere Christ who lived 
and died two thousand years ago had as well 
never been, except He now lives again and 
works as the Holy Spirit among men. Not 
that the Spirit is only the influence of Christ; 
He is Christ and the Father; they are one, 
and being thus God, His work is the personal 
influence of God. The Spirit is not merely 
God's influence; but the Spirit's influence is 
God's influence. 

Eternal life, then, is simply and only the 
kind of life Jesus led. It is to be obtained 
only by knowing Him, and by knowing and 
following Him, coming to be more and more 
like Him. That is the Scriptural process. 
''We are changed from glory to glory into the 
same image (the Lord's image)," says Paul, 
*'even as by the Spirit of the Lord. "^ We 

* 2 Cor. iii. i8 

96 



ETERNAL LIFE 

are **predestined to be conformed to the 
image of His son. ''^ *'The new man is 
renewed in knowledge"' — that is, progressively 
changed as we get more knowledge of Him — 
**after the image of Him that created him/'^ 
This is the power, the dynamic force that is 
changing the world; ''Christ, the power of 
God, and the wisdom of God. "^ Jesus* per- 
sonality is melting all the sin and sorrow out 
of humanity; being lifted up. He is drawing 
all men unto Him. This force is like the 
sun, the source of all earth's forces. It was 
working in Socrates and Plato and Buddha;* 
but now in Christ bodied forth and manifested 
unto us. It was in Abraham and the prophets, 
but they only ** obtained a good report 
through faith, and received not the promise, 
God having provided some better thing for 
us,"^ even Jesus' person. This is '*the light 
that lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world. *'** So we perceive that the ''imma- 
nence of God'' and "the Holy Ghost" and 
"the personality of Jesus," these three are 
one. "This is life eternal — to know God."' 

* Rom. viii. 29. = Col. iii. 10. ^ 1 Cor. i. 24. 



* ** Philosophy more especially was given to the Greeks, as a 
covenant peculiar to them— being, as it is, a stepping-stone to the 

Shilosophy which is according to Christ. "—Clement of Alexan- 
ria, "Stromata," book vi., chapter 8. 

• Heb. xi. 39, 40. « John i. 9. 

^ John xvii. 3. Note the kind of figures of speech used to 
represent the mode of Christ's operation upon men, and man's 
operation also upon his fellows, to save them; as, bread, water, 
light, salt, savor, quickening, love, and the like. Does any reality 
mall these figures so well as personal influence? 

97 



SUGGESTIONS 

Theological definitions cannot be fences enclosing 
truth, but spires pointing upward to the firmament of 
truth. 

It is the commonest verbs of any language, that 
are irregular; and the commonest, best known things 
of life are the most mysterious; as love, life, and force. 

The influence of one man upon another is of the 
same kind as the influence of God upon man, differ- 
ing in degree only as God differs from man. 

It is not what Christ has done, but what He is, that 
saves us. 

"You in Christ** and "Christ in you^' are explain- 
able only by the interplay of personalities. 

A philosopher would have said: "Follow truth"; 
but Jesus said: "Follow Me—I am the Truth.*' 

Salvation by God's personal influence is possible 
because we are akin to Him. 

The theology of Christianity forever abides in 
Christ's own person and cannot be got out of Him. 

When you form a doctrine concerning Christ you 
have secured an image of truth, but left the truth 
itself in Him. 

There is no other "plan of salvation*^ than this: 
"Come unto Me.** 

As Christ is "very God,** so the Holy Ghost is 
"very Christ." 

Eternal life is Christ*s kind of life; we get it by 
walking with Him. 



CHAPTER V 

THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 

The Central Doctrine of Christianity is not Based 
upon the Cross, but upon the Resurrection, and 
Salvation is not the Legal Consequence of the Dead 
Christ's Deed, but the Present Effect of the Living 
Christ's Immanence, Made Possible by His Death 



"I came from God, and Vm going back to God, 
and I won*t have any gaps of death in the middle of 
my life." — George MacDonald, Mary Marston^ 
Ch. 57. 

" Another morn 
Ris'n on mid-noon." 
John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book V., Line 310. 

" Why thus longing, thus forever sighing 
For the far-off, unattained, and dim, 
While the beautiful, all around thee lying, 
Offers up its low, perpetual hymn?** 
Harriet W. Sewall, Why Thus Longing, 

" I am the Resurrection." 

Jesus, John xi. 25. 

"But God, even when we were dead in sins, hath 
raised us up together, and made us sit together in the 
heavenlies with Christ Jesus." — Paul, Eph. ii. 4. 

"To build a new life on a ruined life. 
To make the future fairer than the past. 
And make the past appear a troubled dream." 
Longfellow, The Masque of Pandora, Pt. 8. 



100 



CHAPTER V 

Most persons are under the same delusion 
that obscured the perception of Martha; they 
believe the lower, but cannot grasp the upper 
thought of the resurrection. 

"Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother (Laza- 
rus) shall rise again. Martha saith unto Him, 
I know that he shall rise again in the resur- 
rection at the last day, Jesus said unto her, 
/ am the resurrection and the life ; he that 
believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet 
shall he live; and whosoever liveth and be- 
lieveth in Me shall never die,'' ^ 

Just as heaven is popularly supposed to be 
situated the other side of death, so the resur- 
rection is held to be that process by which 
we get out of this life and out of death into 
heaven. But Christ clearly meant something 
more than this. For just as He made the 
kingdom of heaven to be a present life, so 
He now speaks of the resurrection as an 
experience that waits not for physical death. 
He that accepts the Christ-life immediately 
passes though the death of the old worldly 

' John xi. 23-26. 

lOI 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

life, is raised again, and here and now enters 
heaven. '''I am the resurrection and the life. ' ' 
"He that heareth My word, and believeth on 
Him that sent Me, shall not come to the 
judgment, but is passed ivom death unto life. '* ^ 
This is an immeasurably loftier thought than 
the vulgar idea. The resurrection is not a 
shadowy thing of the next world only, but is 
a real, vital thing, that any man may know 
and prove and live. 

As there are two forms of the heaven- 
thought, so there are two forms of the resur- 
rection-thought — the resurrection of the body,^ 
and of the soul or life. It is the first form, 
the bodily resurrection, that has chiefly en- 
gaged the attention of men, simply because it 
is a material thing, and human nature clings 
fondly to images, types, symbols, whatever it 
can handle as a tangible conception. The 
resurrection of the body substantially means 
to us all, the continued individuality and per- 
sonality of the man; opinions differ as to 
whether the actual body that died shall rise 
again, be transmuted into a celestial substance, 
and once more be a vehicle through which 
the soul is to express itself, or, on the other 

* John v. 24. 

' ** The resurrection of the body*' is a credal, but not a Scrip- 
tural phrase. The Bible speaks of "The resurrection of the 
dead." Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the two 
forms of thought upon this matter are (i) the rising of the dead 
at the last day, and (2) the rising of the dead now into the new, 
eternal life. 

102 



THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 

hand, the soul shall put on an entirely new 
body. While it cannot make a particle of 
difference one way or the other, while no one 
of good common sense cares in the least 
whether God will use the identical atoms of 
the old body or new atoms, yet about this 
point serious theological battles have been 
waged. Has it ever occurred to the reader 
that it is the trivialities, the appurtenances 
of religion that have been the storm centers 
of discussion? Whether a bishop shall wear 
a white or a black robe, whether we shall 
kneel or stand when we pray, whether in bap- 
tizing we shall use a pint or a tank of water, 
whether we shall rest on Saturday or Sunday 
as the Sabbath — that is, not whether we shall 
rest one day in seven or not, but which day 
of the seven it shall be! — and all such petty 
things have divided church organizations and 
furnished ground for vast sects to stand upon. 
Now, with the resurrection it is not of the 
slightest importance as to the form in which 
we enter upon the life beyond the grave. A 
sensible man knows nothing about it, knows 
that he knows nothing, ar^d is perfectly con- 
tent to know nothing, trusting God to give 
him '*a body as it hath pleased Him.** ^ 

But the vital point for us to know and 
believe about the resurrection is not so much 

* I Cor. XV. 38. 

103 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

that it will take place for the body as that it 
may take place now and here for the soul. 
The upper thought of the resurrection is the 
rising of the life of a man out from the death- 
life into the glory of the Christ-life. It is 
the resurrection in this sense that is the most 
prominent thing in the preaching of the 
apostles. 

In order to understand this it is necessary 
to look for a moment with clear eyes at the 
meaning of the word *'death*' in the New 
Testament. It also has two meanings — the 
grosser, that of the dissolution of the physical 
frame ; and the moi:e spiritual, that of a life 
of ungodliness. When we examine carefully 
into what substantially constitutes death we 
find that it is not the perishing of the animal 
organism, but the inability to see and appre- 
ciate things that are of true human concern. 
For instance, an insane person of sound body 
is more dead than one who, as was the case 
of Alexander Stephens, has a body almost 
useless because of disease, yet a mind bright 
and a heart warm. Bodily decay really has 
not so much to do with dying as spiritual and 
mental blindness. We can imagine one 
whose body has died and yet whose spirit is 
still active, as being more alive than one 
whose body is full of vitality, but whose spirit 
is imbruted. Going a little further into the 

104 



THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 

matter, we perceive that death, to use the 
phraseology of the scientists, is simply a lack 
of harmony and sympathy with our environ- 
ment, and that thus one is more or less alive 
as he uses that environment.^ A dyspeptic 
man is dead to pastry and sweetmeats, be- 
cause he cannot assimilate them. A stupid 
lout is dead to the books as he walks through 
the library. One person may be dead to 
music; it bores him, he cannot absorb into 
himself the orchestral harmonies. Another 
may stroll through the art gallery and be 
dead to all the masterful human force there 
displayed, for it kindles nothing in him, does 
not digest in his soul to feed his aspirations 
and emotions. So one may be dead to clean- 
liness, another to fashion, another to sports, 
another to china, and another to flowers — 
things to which many persons are exceedingly 
responsive. Therefore, death, real death, is 
in proportion to our inability to apprehend 
and appropriate our surroundings. We call 
one who has passed out of his earthly life — 
we call such a one particularly dead, because, 
as far as we know^ he has completely ceased 
to know or feel the world ; and yet he may, 
after all, be simply made more alive instead of 
being dead. Now, Jesus and His apostles used 
death in the real and spiritual sense, and not 

* Spencer, Drummond. 

105 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

in its apparent and material sense. (The 
spiritual is always the true meaning of any 
word, the material is the symbolic meaning. ) 
And as God, virtue, brotherliness, love, and 
the like are the most infinitely important 
things pertaining to men, therefore those who 
are irresponsive to these great things are more 
especially the dead. Not the collapse of the 
physical frame, but the debasement of the 
spirit is true death. Christ transferred 
the word **death** from bodily dissolution to 
spiritual decay, simply because He viewed 
the former as merely an incident, but the lat- 
ter as a tremendous calamity. Body death is 
sad, mind death or insanity is far sadder and 
more dreadful, but a dead spirit wandering 
through an earth crowded with God and love 
and goodness, yet knowing nothing of them, 
is saddest, most pitiful, and most terrible of 
all. 

Consider some of the Scriptures where 
death is so used. Of course, in many 
instances the common idea is attached to the 
word ; ^ there is no straining nor mysticism in 
Christ's language, but common sense can 
easily discriminate and perceive where He 
talks of death in its ordinary acceptation and 
death as a spirit's paralysis. John, the gos- 
peler with the keenest spiritual insight, gives 

* Compare Luke xvi, 22 with John xi. 26. 

106 



THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 

us examples: "If a man keep My saying, he 
shall never see death*' ;^ '*We have passed 
from death unto life"; "He that loveth not 
his brother abideth in death. "^ Paul, how- 
ever, brings out the point more clearly: "To 
be carnally minded is death" ;^ "When we 
were dead in sins,"* etc. 

The upper thought, then, of life is to be 
awake to those interests, aims, and feelings 
that were in Christ, to see and live among 
the higher concerns of humanity. Of death 
the upper thought is to be oblivious to or 
untouched by these lofty matters. Of resur- 
rection the upper and truer thought is to rise 
out of this deadness and to be quickened into 
this life. And these upper thoughts are not 
figurative and symbolic, but they are real, 
and correspond to actual facts, while the 
ordinary meanings, the lower thoughts, are 
only used of certain appearances and natural 
phenomena of whose real significance we can 
know nothing.^ In the common usage of the 
words it is a veiled mystery what life, death, 

' John viii. 51. Compare John v. 24; vi. 47, 50, 51, etc. 

* I John iii. 14. 

^Marginal reading: "The minding of the flesh," that is, 
thinking of, or being occupied with, things not spiritual; that is, 
a man is dead in the truest sense when his little world does not 
include the spiritualities. Rom. viii. 6. 

* Eph. ii. 5. 

" 2 Cor. iv. 18. " The things which are seen are temporal; but 
the things which are not seen are eternal.*' So the spirit of man 
is the reality, the body its passing expression ; God is real, the 
universe a phase. Only from this point of view can we correctly 
interpret the Scriptures. 

107 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

or the resurrection may actually be; but in 
the truer sense given these words by Christ, 
we can know and comprehend them. 

It is the resurrection, and not the cross, 
that is the most frequent theme of apostolic 
preaching, for the latter was but the means, 
while the former was the end.^ The cross 
stood for the cause of the pardon of sin, but 
the resurrection for the fact of the putting away 
of sin by the new life. The death of Christ 
was subordinated, in apostolic preaching, to 
His rising again. '*It is Christ that died, 
yea rather that is risen again,** ^ exclaimed 
Paul. This was the motive of Peter's great 
Pentecostal sermon: ''This Jesus hath God 
raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.'*^ 
So much did Paul emphasize the resurrection 
that he declared: ''If in this life only we have 

^ In the effort to give to the resurrection its full apostolic sig- 
nificance I have perhaps been led to discriminate overmuch be- 
tween the respective values of the cross and the resurrection. 
The incarnation, the example, the teaching, the death, and the 
resurrection of Christ are one indivisible whole. They constitute 
the one great revelation of God through His Son. We may not 
say that one part is more necessary than another. But the point 
is, that, as mediaeval theology exalted the legal aspect of the death 
of Christ to such a degree as to render the other factors almost 
dispensable, as far as our salvation is concerned, so now I strive 
to show that the resurrection, for the reasons set forth in this 
chapter, is the crowning culminating act of the Christ-revelation. 
It is the resurrection which the apostles brought most to the 
front, not, as is generally supposed, because of its evidential 
value only, but because of its spiritual si^ificance and its theo- 
logical importance. To give most emphasis to the example and 
teaching of Jesus is the cnaracteristic of the humanitarians (uni- 
tarians, etc.); to emphasize unduly the cross is the character- 
istic of Augustinianism (the Latin theology); while to put in the 
most prominent place in the Gospel the resurrection and the 
*' power" thereof was the apostles' custom, and such will be the 
theology of to-morrow. 

* Rom. viii. 34. * Acts ii. 32. 

108 



THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 

hope in Christ, we are of all men most miser- 
able. '* ^ To the Ephesians he writes that the 
marvel of the ages is that God, ''even when we 
were dead in sins, hath quickened us together 
with Christ Jesus; and hath raised us up 
together, and made us sit together in heaven- 
life with Christ Jesus. "^ He makes this to 
be. the aim of God in creation: "For whom 
He did foreknow, He did also predestinate to 
be made like the image of His Son, that He 
might be the first-born among many breth- 
ren. "^ The greatest, most dynamic fact 
concerning Christ was not His death, but 
that He now liveth, for '*if Christ be not 
raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your 
sins. '* * Not to multiply quotations, if we read 
carefully the epistles of the apostles we must 
be struck by the fact that it was the resur- 
rection more than the cross, that is the great 
burden of their preaching. It was not until 
the corruption of Christianity by the Latin 
church that the cross was elevated above the 
resurrection, a mistake that lingers to this 
day, and one which is illustrative of a pro- 
found misconception of the Gospel, as we 
shall see later on. 

Let us now ask why it is that the resurrec- 
tion has this pregnant force. Why did the 

* I Cor. XV. 19. ^ Rom. viii. 29. 

« Eph. ii. 5-6. * I Cor. xv. 16-17. 

XO9 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

immediate followers of Christ so emphasize it, 
why should it always now be a theme even 
more to be put to the front than the cross? 
It is simply because the resurrection means a 
living, present Saviour, a constant, daily Res- 
cuer from sin, while the cross means a dying 
Saviour, a God participating in the woe conse- 
quent on sin that thus He may redeem us. 
The cross signifies the means by which is 
secured the cancellation of sins, the wiping 
away of the old writing on the heart's guilty 
tablet; the resurrection means the actual 
cancellation itself, the substitution of new for 
old writing. It is well to be given a medi- 
cine that will cure our disease ; it is better to 
have the Physician who can administer that 
medicine; the dying Saviour is the medicine, 
the living Saviour is the Physician who applies 
His own blood. And that blood is of no avail 
unless He applies it. The cross means the 
preparation for forgiveness; the resurrection 
means actual forgiveness by the newness of 
life or the regeneration. As Paul puts it: 
"For if, when we were enemies, we were recon- 
ciled to God by the death of His Son, much 
more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by 
His life.'*^ 

It is not the blood alone that saves, but it is 
the resurrection — that is, the risen Jesus. 

* Rom. V. 10. 

no 



THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 

This makes it all-important. The emphasis 
we put upon the phrase, **saved by the 
blood/* is not Scriptural. We are not saved 
by the death alone of Jesus. It is not the 
cross, but the Man who hung there, that is 
our salvation. This misunderstanding has 
arisen from the old false notion of salvation, 
as though it were from a penalty instead of 
from a life of sin. The cross supplies the 
means by which the resurrection saves. **He 
was delivered for our offenses, and rose again 
for our justification.''^ Paul uses not the 
phrase, "the power of the cross," but he 
speaks of *'the power of His resurrection."^ 
We are not saved because Jesus appeased the 
overhanging wrath of Deity, but because He 
now lives for us, to help us and guide us by 
His Spirit out of our living death. Far be it 
from me to seem to belittle the transcendent 
majesty of the cross or the endless efficacy of 
the suffering Lamb of God ; but what I say is 
that apart from the risen Saviour the atone- 
ment is of no avail; it simply has no efficacy 
at all because of our complete inability to 
utilize it to lead a new life withal. Because 
of the death of Christ we are to be purged, 
cleansed; but because of His reviving and 
living now we are thus purged and cleansed.^ 

^ Rom. iv. 25. 2 phji. iii. 10; i Cor. i. i8. 

* **But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead 
dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also 

III 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

To stop at the cross means a mere negative 
and impotent salvation ; ^ to go on to the 
resurrection, a positive and triumphant salva- 
tion. 

Now, this preeminence of the resurrection 
is not due to a theologic quibble; it is not all 
a question merely of which part of the "plan 
of salvation** is the most important, but the 
point is one arising from the nature of the 
case and is easily perceived by common sense. 
For the resurrection implies a living, operat- 
ing Saviour personally saving men now by His 
own exertions, while salvation by the cross 
implies man saved by a device or sacrificial 
ceremony. The former makes the means of 
saving to be the influence of an ever-pres- 
ent, personal Deity: *'Lo, I am with you 
alway, even to the end";^ while the latter 
makes saving to be only a legal and formal 
cancellation of a penalty in the divine court 
records against men. Cross-salvation fits the 
notion of salvation as an act of securing a 
man's title to a future heaven; resurrection- 
salvation fits the idea, which in this essay is 
insisted upon as the true one, of salvation as 

quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." 
Rom. viii. ii. The actual quiclcening is done ** by His Spirit that 
dwelleth in you," and is done because *' He raised up Christ from 
the dead." 

^ "And it Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and 
your faith is also vam." i Cor. xv. 14. 

® Matt, xxviii. 20. 

113 



THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 

a lifting of a man from a low life into a Christ- 
life, both now and forever. We are saved 
into eternal life because our Saviour has risen 
and works in us to destroy the works of the 
devil. In other words, it is not the death of 
Christ, but Christ Himself, by virtue of His 
death, that saves us. We pass from death 
unto life not as a legal or ceremonial conse- 
quence of what He did for us, but because of 
what He does in us now as a living Redeemer. 
You will notice this view is strikingly con- 
formable to all of Jesus' words about His 
mission. "Because I live, ye shall live 
also"; ^ our life is dependent on His life, not 
His death. In His parable of the bread from 
heaven He said: *'So he that eateth Me, 
even he shall live by Me,''^ and ^'Except ye 
eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink 
His blood, ye have no life in you'* ;^ and *'He 
that eateth of this bread shall live forever";* 
all of which is about as plain as could be 
made that our eternal life is consequent upon 
His rising again and living on to impart His 
life to us. Again He said, ''My sheep follow 
Me, and I give unto them eternal life, and 
they shall never perish, neither shall any man 
pluck them out of My hand";^ in which pas- 
sage He clearly represents salvation as a mat- 

* John xiv. 19. ^ John vi. 58. 

* John vi. 57. « John x. 27-28. 

* John vi. 53. 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

ter personally attended to by Himself, He 
holding, guarding, and leading His sheep, and 
not merely by His death securing them an 
eternal title to bliss beyond the grave. And 
as if to clinch this meaning. He adds, in the 
next verse, **I and My Father are one,''^ as 
if to say, '* Deity does not give you salvation 
merely because I pay its price by My death, 
but I am Deity. My death and sufferings 
equip Me to keep and save you from sin. '* 
Again, in His great prayer, He said that God 
had given Him power to *'give eternal life" 
to as many as the Father had given Him; 
adding, '*And this is life eternal, that they 
might know Thee, the only true God, and 
Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" ;^ that is, 
that eternal life is not merely an inheritance 
bought by the blood, but a higher career 
secured by knowing and living in communion 
with God in Christ. Paul also speaks of 
"Christ, who is our life," ^ and, although often 
referring to Him as the source of our life, 
never once speaks of eternal life as given by 
Christ's death, that death being rather the 
groundwork of our redemption, atonement, 
reconciliation, bringing nigh, remission, and 
the like.* 

* John X. 30. • John xvii. 2-3. ^ Col. iii. 4. 

* In a rapid reading of the Acts of the Apostles I find the 
theme of apostolic preaching sixteen times to be the resurrection, 
while in not one instance is the atonement made the text of any 
address given. Paul does not say he is determined to know 

114 



THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 

So then we conclude that the doctrine of 
men's salvation by the atonement on the 
cross, meaning thereby that one who accepts it 
is made sure of bliss in the world to come/ is 
not a Scriptural teaching, but that the true 
Gospel is that our salvation, being made pos- 
sible by Christ's death, is actually accomplished 
by the risen, living Saviour. The cross was the 
preliminary, the resurrection life of Christ 
is the real means of salvation. As the king- 
dom of heaven is not a place beyond death, 
so belief in the atonement does not secure 
entrance into that place ; but as the kingdom 
of heaven is a new life for man, a '*life more 
abundant" which death cannot touch, so the 
power of the risen Saviour gives us admission 
into and maintains us in that life. As salva- 
tion is not a theatric legal transaction of a 
God so bound by the letter of His own laws 
that He cannot pardon except a certain price 

nothing but the crucifixion, that is, as is now commonly under- 
stood, the preaching of the atonement, but that his determination 
is to know naught but "Jesus Christ and Him crucified.'* In 
other words, he emphasizes the personality^ not the act of Jesus. 

I Cor. ii. 2. 

The reader will notice also, by finding in the concordance all 
the passages where the death of Christ is referred to in the epis- 
tles as a Cjospel theme, that it is almost always coupled with His 
resurrection. For instance Rom. v. i with Rom.iv. 25; 2 Cor. 
V. 15; Gal. ii. 20; Heb. ix. 28; i Pet. ii. 24 and iii. 18; Rom. vi. 3 to 

II (this explicitly sets forth the true relation of His death to His 



resurrection): Rom. v. 6-11; Eph. ii. 12 13 with verses 5 and 6 
(5, 6 explains how He does what is set forth in 12-13) \ Phil. iii. 10; 
Rom. viii. 34; Col. ii. 12-15; 2 Cor. xiii. 4; Gal. vi. 14 with 15 : Col. 
ii. 20 with iii. i, 3, 4; Gal. v. 24, 25: 2 Tim. ii. 11; Rev. i. 18; Rom. 
V. 10-21 (comparing Adam with Christ, Paul compares Adam's 
death with Christ's life)^ etc. 

^ It is not the acceptance of the Gospel that saves, but it is the 
reception of God. that saves. 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

be paid, so the atonement does not, by satis- 
fying divine resentment, admit us into a 
heavenly city the other side of death; but as 
salvation is a saving from sin and death-life 
and despair and animality, into righteousness 
and Christ-life and hope and the possibility of 
eternal progress, so the "power of His resur- 
rection'* — that is, the power of Him as a risen 
and now operating Saviour, accomplishes this. 
It may be said that all this is immaterial, 
that it is only a fine and useless distinction 
without a real difference. But such is not 
the fact. There is a profound gap between 
the two theories. The one reduces salvation 
to a technicality, a court-room shift of a 
martinet Deity; the other makes salvation 
the working of an immanent Saviour-Deity con- 
stantly in men. The one lays the foundation 
for a superstructure of legalizing sophistries 
about what constitutes saving faith and essen- 
tials and the like ; the other sweeps away all 
these confusing refinements and places the 
soul as a child in the immediate care of a pres- 
ent, loving Father-Saviour. The one made 
possible the vast perversions of the Latin 
Church; the other is the very spirit of the 
apostles. The one produces a contempt of 
God in unbelieving minds, as it shows Him to 
be an austere and exacting Judge; the other 
unfolds God as love and helpfulness, not as a 

ii6 



THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 

Judge letting a culprit go, but as a Shepherd 
going out after His sheep. To the one theory 
are traceable most of the bitter accusations 
of infidels against the church, while to the 
other very few have found objection. Most 
of the saints of the church have shone as 
holy examples just in proportion as they 
made no practical use of the theory that their 
salvation was a title to a future world by the 
death of Jesus, treating it as a mystery they 
believed but did not comprehend, and using 
as a working theory the idea of a risen Lord 
saving them daily from evil. The one theory 
has easily been perverted into the corrupt 
doctrine that a buccaneer and lecher could 
live in his sins, and yet by orthodox "belief 
in the atonement" make sure his ''eternal 
life'*; a corruption that would have been 
impossible had the church faithfully taught 
that eternal life hereafter is an impossibility 
except as a continuation of the eternal kind 
of life begun here, and that saving faith is 
not a mental consent to participation in the 
merits of Christ's death, but a reception of 
and communion with a risen, present Lord — 
a faith utterly absurd to claim unless it 
redeems us trom sinfulness to a higher life. 
So therefore this is not a theologic hair-split- 
ting; it pertains to a mistake that has dis- 
graced and caricatured Christianity for ages, 

117 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

eating out the very heart of its purpose ; it 
pertains to a truth which alone can make 
Christianity a real power and blessing upon 
earth. 

The world has been slow to grasp *'the 
mind that was in Christ.*' For ages we have 
lived under the shadow of the cross. For 
two long chiliads have men made the *'whole- 
some words of our Lord Jesus Christ** ^ to be 
morbid, deathly, and benumbing sentences by 
which a wicked race was to thread its uncer- 
tain way to a better land. A far-off God was 
worshiped, while all the time He was near. A 
dead Christ was trusted, while all the time He 
was alive. A remote heaven was sung and 
sighed for, while all the time the kingdom of 
heaven was "at hand." Through the long 
night of medisevalism the world was saying, 
"Who shall ascend into heaven, to bring Christ 
down, or who shall descend into the deep to 
bring Christ again from the dead?** Yet all 
the time Paul's word thundered in vain against 
an iron system of theology, "The Word is 
nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy 
heart. **^ We have lingered too long at the 
cross, chilled there by the despair of an 
Augustinian theology that seemed so true 
because it was as deeply wretched and black 
as the human heart itself. Let us be up and 

* I Tim. vi. 3: ** healthful words." • Rom. x. 6-8. 

118 



THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 

go on to the open tomb, go on to meet a 
risen Lord, who ever liveth, whose presence 
abides with us, who is come again that our 
joy may be full. The cross has been degraded 
to be a superstitious sign, a talisman to ward 
off the devils of another world. By reducing 
salvation to a mere '*plan'* for obtaining 
security for the soul after death, there was 
made possible all the grotesque instances of 
vile lives going out clinging to the sign of the 
crucifix, assured by priests that * 'faith'* would 
surely "save.'* Upon this theory was built 
the system of indulgences, of purgatory, of 
masses for the dead. Common sense pro- 
tested, and was told to be quiet and adore. 
Reason refused to accept this death's-head 
theology and it was insulted and trampled 
into silence. It was held that man could not 
understand divine things, that it was natural 
that mere human intelligence should be un- 
able to comprehend God's great * 'scheme." 
"It is certain because it is impossible," said 
a certain father.^ But whereas salvation 
merely by a scheme to escape from future 
punishment thus insults all that natural reason 
tells us about God, on the contrary salvation 
from a sinful life and its consequences by the 
power of a living and immanent Saviour is most 
sweet and acceptable to what common sense 

^ Tertullian. Commonly misquoted: " I believe because it is 
impossible." 

119 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

tells us ought to be the nature of God. Sal- 
vation by the resurrection, by a living, ever- 
present God, squares with Greek philosophy, 
with Oriental longings, and with all the high- 
est expression of men everywhere, while 
salvation from future pangs by an atonement- 
scheme alone is artificial, unreasonable, and 
unscriptural. The latter was made, not by 
the apostles, but by Augustine and his fellows, 
who constructed their theology as special 
pleaders with the distinct object of bolster- 
ing the claims of the church ; it was perpetu- 
ated by the church after the Reformation 
simply because it had acquired so much 
strength during its long growth through the 
Middle Ages, and had so struck its deadly 
roots through all theology that they were 
unable to get rid of it in their day. The 
time has now, however, surely come when we 
can begin to see *'the truth as it is in Jesus*' — 
to get back to Christ, back to Clement of 
Alexandria and the early Greek Church 
fathers. 

We must bear in mind that the root and cause 
of all the morbidities of religion in the past has 
been the making of the '^eternal life'* of the 
Scriptures to mean only something beginning 
beyond the grave. This is the dead fly, 
which, if it be in the ointment of any concep- 
tion of the Gospel, causeth it to stink. Given 

1 20 



.THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 

eternal life after death only, and all the 
distortions naturally appear, such as salva- 
tion by God's machinery, instead of by God 
Himself, a low and legalizing fear of '*the 
judgment seat,'* a false importance to death- 
bed scenes and repentances, a vast church 
professing to guarantee believers security, 
and the whole ''insurance*' idea of the Gos- 
pel. But when eternal life is a thing to be 
here and now imparted by a present Deity, 
when this life is called eternal not because 
it begins after time, but because it is so 
divine in its nature that death cannot affect 
it, then we perceive none of these evil effects. 
Eternal life as a future blessing lays emphasis 
upon our acceptance of an artificial divine 
scheme, and morality is of little consequence 
compared with a saving faith ; but eternal life 
as an immediate condition to be entered upon 
by coming under the power of a risen Saviour 
is fruitful of good works, always abounding 
in the work of the Lord.^ One quarrels with 
morality as a rival; the other shames morality 
by a righteousness which "exceeds that of 
the Scribes and Pharisees."^ One is pessi- 
mistic, viewing the world as an evil to be 
escaped from ; the other is optimistic, going 

* It is worthy of note that it is as a conclusion and climax of 
his mighty argument for the resurrection that Paul exclaims: 
**Therefore, my beloved brethren," etc. i Coj. xv. 58. 

* Matt. V. 20. 

121 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

forth in supernal strength to overcome the 
world even as He overcame. One looks only 
on the earth as a vile planet to be burnt at 
last by an angry Maker disgusted with His 
failure ; the other contemplates this globe as 
only waiting for the manifestation of the sons 
of God in order to be wholly redeemed and 
made glorious. The one gazes paralyzed on 
sin and the dead Christ it has slain ; the other 
rises with streaming eyes from the open tomb 
to cry out in joyous hope, '*My Lord and 
my God!'' 

The Reformation was at bottom this deser- 
tion of the dead for the living Christ. The 
crucifix was the symbol of the life of the 
church from the beginning of the predomi- 
nancy ot the Latin bishops until Luther. 
The reformers began the work of leading a 
despairing world away from its agonizing 
prostration before this awful figure out into 
the newness of a Christ-filled world. They 
themselves suspected not the extent of their 
work, and builded better than they knew. 
Luther, Calvin, Knox, Wesley, and the others 
clung more or less tenaciously to the old land- 
marks of human tradition, and were wise in so 
doing, as the transition was so immense that 
it could only be made gradually. But more 
and more in this age are the signs apparent of 
a longing for a return to the simplicity of 

122 



THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 

Christ. More and more is the idea of a risen 
and immanent Lord pervading the churches. 
The great revival of the eighteenth century, 
in its central themes of holiness and experi- 
mental religion, showed how the mighty heart 
of man was rising to the apprehension of a 
personally acting Saviour. The leaders of 
that revival, although unable to swing clear 
from the theological system that Rome had 
fastened upon all our conceptions of the 
work of Christ, still poured forth such a wealth 
of passionate feeling in their preachment and 
in their hymns, that the world was made to 
see that **the Lord is risen indeed." The old 
system cannot stand long against such singing 
as this of Charles Wesley: 

"My soul breaks out in strong desire 

The perfect bliss to prove, 
My longing heart is all on fire 

To be dissolved in love. 
Give me Thyself; from every boast, 

From every wish set free; 
Let all I am in Thee be lost. 

But give Thyself to me. 
Thy gifts t alas! cannot suffice^ 

Unless Thyself be given ; 
Thy Prese7ice makes my paradise ^ 

And where Thou art is heaven^ 

The great revivals which characterize the 
life of modern evangelical churches have 
taken on more and more of the tone of the 

123 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

present, living Saviour, although much of the 
actual indoctrinating still keeps the old 
Augustinian formulas. The world is shaking 
off as a horrid dream the thoughts of a far-off 
God with a mechanical, legal plan of salva- 
tion, and of a salvation referring to the dim 
future only. We can never altogether cease 
to respect the Latin church, because it held 
for the world through the Dark Ages the 
body of Christ; but we are looking at it now 
as one who looked at the tomb of Jesus, say- 
ing, ''Come, see the place where the Lord 
lay.'* We are realizing the second advent, 
the coming again of a risen Christ into men's 
thinking and practice, after for long ages He 
has been to us but a dead victim, a sacrificial 
lamb, a mere incident in the divine machinery 
of the atonement. The light of life is radiat- 
ing throughout the world. Look no more 
into your plans and schemes you have marked 
out for Him. He is not there; He is risen. 
He is coming now into all civilization, govern- 
ment, philosophy, and dreams of men. *'Even 
so come, Lord Jesus!" 

It is Easter morning in theology. Throw 
away your crucifixes! Receive ye the Holy 
Ghost! 



124 



SUGGESTIONS 

It is Easter morning in theology. 

It is the trivialities of religion that have been the 
storm centers of discussion. 

The spiritual is always the true meaning of any 
word — the material is the symbolic meaning. 

The upper thought is the true one. 

The keynote of apostolic preaching was the resur- 
rection, rather than the cross. 

The blood of the dying Christ is of no avail unless 
applied by the living Christ. 

At bottom, the Reformation was a turning from 
the dead to the living Christ. 

The immanence of God is the watchword of the 
future. 

We respect the mediaeval church for preserving 
for us the body of Christ; but we are coming to look 
on it as one looked at the tomb of Jesus and exclaimed: 
** Come, see the place where the Lord lay." 

We are realizing the second advent. 

Buddhism holds that desire is sin, existence is de- 
sire, hence to destroy sin, existence must cease; at 
this fundamental point it touches Christianity, only 
the latter teaches that existence may be transformed, 
it need not be destroyed. 



CHAPTER VI 

DEFINITIONS 

Scripture Terms for the Operation of Religion are 
Explainable only by Assuming it to be God's Per- 
sonal Influence 



"Les jans^nistes font la grkce un espece de qua- 
trieme personne de la sainte Trinity. Saint Paul et 
Saint Augustin, trop ^tudi^s, ou etudi^s uniquement, 
ont tout perdu, si on ose le dire. Au lieu de grace, 
dites aide^ secours, influence divine, celeste ros^e; on 
s'entend alors. Ce mot est comme un talisman. . . . 
Personnifier les mots est un mal funeste en th^- 
ologie." — JouBERT, Pensies, 35. (Quoted from Allen.) 

"By grace are ye saved through faith.*' — Paul, 
Eph. ii. 8. 

"Men are apt to conclude that the 'righteousness 
of Christ' must denote something separate and dis- 
tinct from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, bringing 
forth fruit unto holiness, because they fear to confound 
together what they habitually, though unconsciously, 
consider two different agents." — Whately, Difficul- 
ties in the Writings of St, Paul, p. 191. 



CHAPTER VI 

Viewing religion as the personal influence 
of God in us, it will be perhaps helpful to 
restate the definitions of some of the princi- 
pal terms, the phrases and words, in which 
the Scriptures and common theology describe 
its operation in us. These terms have been 
so much bandied to and fro in religious con- 
troversy that they have come to have artifi- 
cial meanings. Or rather, we have become 
accustomed to use them as a kind of algebraic 
signs, standing for certain materials for debate 
or for unquestioning faith; as smooth coins 
passing current in our thought and speech, 
yet having the inscriptions thereon so blurred 
that we rarely ever look to see what exactly 
they are. Let us therefore take a few of the 
more important of them, and divesting our- 
selves as nearly as may be from all precon- 
ceived or traditional notions, try to find out 
what is actually meant by them. Let us take 
the point of view that religion is God's influ- 
ence in us, and, assuming this as a working 
hypothesis, let us see what these common 
terms mean to common sense. 

In the first place, it becomes plain, from 

129 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

this view-point, that any gift or effect or 
merit or any such thing transferred to us from 
God means nothing at all unless we keep in 
mind that God's personality goes with it. 
There is no gift without the Giver, no blessing 
apart from the Blesser, no promise without the 
Promiser. All His benefits to and in us are 
but phases of His person as it bears to us and 
works by its influence in us. We get the most 
valuable things, not because He does or has 
done something, but we get such things from 
Him directly as doing or having done some- 
thing.^ This is a very important distinction, 

' This is as true in material as in spiritual concerns. We do 
not get bread upon our table because God instituted certain laws 
of nature by which wheat grows, and so forth; He, after having 
set such laws in motion, going off somewhere and leaving them to 
run themselves. But God does personally and intelligently make 
the wheat grow, *• God giveth tne increase," God is in the oven 
changing the dough by heat into wholesome food. There is no 
slightest beat of the sparrow's wing, no deviation of the motion of 
a mote floatmg in the sunbeam, no alteration of the stream's eddy 
nor of the air's current, but is directly, intelligently and person- 
ally attended to by Hmi who thinks of and is conscious of all 
things at once even as we are conscious of and can think of but 
one thing at a time. This is the immanence of Deity in nature. 
It is not that God made gravitation, cohesion, and the like, but 
that these are phases of His utilization of matter. He did not 
make a universe and then retire to sit somewhere and watch it 
afar off. But the operation of force in matter is the process of His 
making. The one view is a God-less materiality; the other a G^?^- 
/«// organism. The one view assumes matter as a fact, spirit as 
an explanation or phenomenon of that tact; the other takes the 
Spirit to be the reality, and matter its mode of expression. 

A similar difference lies between the common (the Augustinian 
or Latin) theology and the New Testament (or Greek) theology. 
One conceives that the value of the Gospel lies in the perfection of 
the plan God has made, which is so complete that of itself it oper- 
ates to save; the other, that the Gospel is merely a light shed upon 
the method God is taking personally to redeem men. By the 
Latin scheme God could very well have commissioned some angel 
to attend to the working out of the details of His redemption 
plan, to distribute the rewards and punishments, to bestow grace 
and balance the accounts; but by the apostolic scheme, more 
truly apprehended by the Greek fathers, God is the immanent, 
pervasive, omnipresent personality who Himself does all. 

130 



DEFINITIONS 

and absolutely necessary to our getting a 
rational grasp of Christian doctrines. We 
must take the view here set forth if we wish 
intelligently to wed reason to faith, and not 
sadly to dismiss reason because of faith. We 
have so long been taught that Christianity is 
merely some sort of plan, out of which cer- 
tain benefits accrue to us, that we need now 
to see it as a personal influence of Deity, 
working indeed by a plan, as all God's works 
are orderly and by law, but in itself of reality 
a Force or Power, not displayed for us, but 
in us. 

Looking at our religion in this light, we 
observe, before taking up the terms in detail 
that it reveals it as a wondrously simple 
thing — not simple in the sense of small or 
definable, but simple in the sense of being co- 
herent, a unity, and not confusing. *' Martha, 
Martha," said the Master, *'thou art careful 
and troubled about many things; but one 
thing is needful.'* ^ The Christian has not a 
thousand details to worry over; he has but 
one thing to do, to **keep himself in the love 
of God. ''^ He is like the farmer, who takes 
no thought about the making of leaves and 
tassels and ears on the corn, but only tends 
faithfully the life of the seed and plant, know- 
ing that so it will best make its own foliage 

* Luke X. 41. * Jude 21. 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

and grain. Or he is like the vineyard-keeper, 
whose sole [task is to keep his vines healthy, 
leaving them to work out their own fruit. 
There are many fruits, but one life; many 
evidences, but one power; many forms, but 
one spirit. This was Jesus* meaning, it may 
be, when He admonished us to take no thought 
about what we eat and drink, '*for is not the 
life more than meat, or the body than rai- 
ment?*' and when He asked which of us by tak- 
ing thought could add one cubit to his 
stature.^ The personal influence of God being 
the essence of religion, all there is for us to 
attend to is to strive constantly to allow it 
fuller access into us.^ 

If this in truth is the essence of religion, 
we would naturally suppose the New Testa- 
ment writers would have had some word for 
it, some term to express that influence viewed 
as a concept apart from the being of God 
Himself. Just such a term we find in the word 
**grace/'^ The apostolic signification of 

* Matt. vi. 25. 

* The gist of the incident of the rich young man, in Mark x. 21, 
it seems to me, is often overlooked; it is, that what he needed 
most of all was the Master's personal influence; ** One thing \hoyx 
lackest— follow Me?'' 

' Grace, in Greek Charts^ the root meaiiing of which is ** that 
which gives joy or satisfaction." From this the meaning branched 
into I, pleasantness of manner; 2, charm or elegance of person; 
3, thanks, or an acknowledgment for a kindness done; 4, honor, 
fame, reward, etc., because these are pleasant; etc. In the 
plural, Chariies, it came to mean " those goddesses through 
whose favor agreeable qualities and personal charms are bestowed 
on mortals"; their names are given in Pindar as Euphrosyne, 
Aglaia, and Thaleia, or Cheerfulness, Splendor, and Abundance. 

132 



DEFINITIONS 

**grace" is that of the person of God radiating 
toward and into us. It is one of the new 
words of Christianity, or rather an old word 
transferred to be a vehicle of this new 
thought. Heretofore * 'grace'* had meant favor 
or the attitude of kindness and benignancy 
in any one. And as God, when He was 
revealed in Christ, showed Himself so loving 
and forgiving, no better term than **loving 
favor" or '* grace'' was found to use as ex- 
pressing His bearing toward us. 

When God, as an immanent Spirit in His 
religion, was reasoned out of theology by the 
logic-mongers of the Latin church, leaving 
only the framework and scheme of salvation 
to operate among men, while Deity Himself 
was removed as a far-off Judge, then, of 
course, this term shared the fate of other 
terms. Being emptied of God, it was filled 

These were mayhap in Paul's mind when he set forth the three 
Christian graces, Faith, Hope and Charity. The original color 
of the word may be discerned in the following examples from the 
classics, in each of which charts is the original word; Iliad 14, 235, 
I am grateful to thee; Aristoph. Av. 384, to dispense a favor; 
Polyb. 2, 5, to listen WvcoM^h. flattery ; •* to talk charis" is used in 
Xenophon to mean *'to speak with any one for the purpose of 
conciliating him"; also Xenophon uses '^ dia chariion einai^^^ to 
be in a state of good-will or friendship with any one. Charis is of 
the same origin as, and a kindred word to, the verb chairo^ to be 
joyful; the noun cliarma (Eng., charm) a joy, or a thing that pro- 
duces joy; and the adjective charios, pleasing. 

The above examples are given that the reader may get the real 
flavor of the word grace, a flavor entirely different, it is to be 
feared, from that of our common notion. The consummate flower 
and force of Christian character by which it is to win the world, 
is its grace, that is, primarily, its agreeableness. The root-element 
of Christianity is that it brings y^^. Morality is only the means. 
joy is the object. A morality or righteousness that does not work 
loveliness is not Christian. But we must remember that the joy 
and beauty of life come only through rightness of life. 

133 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

with some sort of mystical, magic potency, 
miraculous and utterly incomprehensible by 
*'mere reason." It was equally, of course 
(for the church never failed to claim for itself 
what it had robbed from God), held to be in 
the keeping of the church and ministry. It 
was transmitted by laying on of hands in bap- 
tism, confirmation, and ordination. It entered 
into men in the sacramental wafers and oils 
and in the sacred touch of priests. It passed 
over into the soul in absolution ; how he never 
could know, he must simply believe it.^ That 
it was artificial and smacked of superstition, 
was nothing against this view, for the more 
absurd a tenet was, the more merit was there 
in believing it. So dominant became this 
idea that all matters of religion were held to 
belong to *'the kingdom of grace,'* ^ in which 
was no law nor coherence except the decree 
of a God who was insulted when men tried to 
understand His ways. This kingdom differed 
from *'the kingdom of nature** as much as 
the politics of the planet Mars would diifer 
from ours. And although we have put by 
much of this kind of feeling about religious 
things, not a little of the magical, vague ele- 

* " The Jansenists made grace to be a sort of Fourth Person 
of the Trinity." — Joubert. Allen says: *' For the living presence 
in the soul of the spiritual Christ, the Latins substituted an in- 
animate thing which was designated in religion nomenclature as 
grace.''^ 

2 First declared by Albertus Magnus, but adopted, systema- 
tized, and given popularity by Aquinas. 

134 



DEFINITIONS 

ment of the thought about grace still lingers 
in the common understanding. 

Now, if we will simply go back and place 
ourselves in the position of the sacred pen- 
men, and endeavor to use the word with the 
same fresh meaning they gave to it, we can- 
not fail to be helped to saner thought. Sup- 
pose, for instance, we substitute the phrase 
'*loving favor" for the word *'grace'' wher- 
ever it is found in the New Testament. This 
will assist us to see how the apostles regarded 
grace as simply the influence of God's recon- 
ciled, benignant face upon their hearts. The 
word, as thus expressing the influence of a 
loving and helpful Father, became a part of 
the oft-used apostolic salutation and benedic- 
tion, ** Grace be unto you,'* "The grace of 
our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all,*' etc.,^ 
as if ever to remind the people that the cen- 
tral idea of the new religion was the revela- 
tion of a God who loves and is kindly disposed 
to US-ward. So, speaking of Jesus, John says 
that while the law came by Moses, ''grace and 
truth came by Jesus Christ;" ^ for in Him the 
world first saw God as a benevolent Father. 
The law was the personality of God working 
in men to create the consciousness of sin ; for 
the law was of course not confined to nor 
made by Moses, but was and is a conviction 

' Rom. i. 7; xvi. 20, etc. * John i. 17. 

135 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

of the hatefulness of sinfulness wherever man 
exists, revealing to him his vileness, making 
him condemn and loathe himself. Moses 
merely gave authoritative and definite shape 
to that universal law. So then law was one 
phase of God's influence, grace was the other, 
the new phase. By God*s person working in 
men as a law, as an ideal of right and purity, 
men got the knowledge of sin as sin. By 
God's person working in men as grace, men 
got the knowledge of how to escape from sin. 
The embodiment of the one was the tables of 
stone ; of the other, the man Christ Jesus. 

Paul calls his being set apart to preach to 
the Gentiles the "dispensation of grace, "^ 
because God's opening the kingdom of heaven 
to non-Jews was to the Jewish mind a marvel- 
ous act of liberality and amazing kindness. 
The primitive meaning of the word comes out 
in Paul's exhortation to the Colossians to 
sing with grace and to use grace in their 
speech, as if he tells them to use in song and 
sermon the same loving favor to men that 
God uses to them.^ Peter calls the disciples 
"stewards of the manifold grace of God,"^ 
for through them the world is to be made to 
see how kind and good is God — they have, as 
it were, God's kindness in their keeping, they 
are responsible for how they show it forth, 

^ Eph. iii. 2. * Col. iii. i6; iv. 6. ^ i Pet. iv. lo. 

136 



DEFINITIONS 

and therefore they are to use ''fervent char- 
ity'' and ''hospitality" one to another/'^ 
Again Peter says to us that we are to "grow 
in grace'* ;^ for as the flower grows in the 
sun's light, so are we to be developed by the 
beams of the divine love and goodness upon 
and in us. 

As grace was the loving favor of God 
toward men, so "the Gospel," or the "good 
news," was the telling about that loving favor. 
Grace was the thing itself; the Gospel the 
relating of it. Grace was the fact ; the Gos- 
pel the proclamation of the fact. The Gospel 
does not save, except by a sort of metonymy, 
or substituting one word for another which 
suggests it; as we say a man keeps a good 
table when we mean he keeps good food on 
his table. It is in this sense only the Gospel 
is called the power of God unto salvation; 
for certainly merely informing a man that 
God is loving and forgiving will do him no 
good unless he acts upon that information to 
make use of this love and forgiveness. Thus 
the contents of the Gospel is the personal influ- 
ence of God ; without that contents it would 
do us no more service than if a man should 
bring us a bag of gold and should give us the 
bag while he kept the gold. 

As this loving favor of God shines upon all 

» I Pet. iv. 8-9. 2 2 Pet. iii. 18. 

137 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

men alike, bad and good, so the Gospel Is to 
every creature without respect of persons. 
Will not all men therefore be saved? Cer- 
tainly, as far as God is concerned they will. 
The same personal influence operates upon 
the wicked and the good, as the sun shines 
and the rain falls upon the just and the un- 
just. And now we come to see how this 
apprehension of religion as God's personal 
influence sheds a striking light upon a fact 
that no other theory has ever made reason- 
able — to wit, how, while God equally loves all 
His children, some of them wax worse and 
worse and may be ultimately lost. No theo- 
logical system can possibly explain this, ^s 
a system. No mechanical scheme of salvation 
can make it seem right. If salvation is a 
plan for getting men to heaven, then, while 
God was making it, reason refuses to under- 
stand why He did not make it so it would 
take the whole world to heaven. If He ex- 
cepts some men from His plan, it cannot be 
that He loves all alike. Driven by this abso- 
lutely irresistible logic, the church fathers 
took refuge in the old evasion of denying the 
rights of reason to meddle with the Almighty's 
machinery, and invented the doctrines of 
eternal foreordination and reprobation, that 
some men were made to be saved and some 
to be damned. When intelligence asked how 

138 



DEFINITIONS 

a good God could do what no good man would 
do, it was met with the reply: ''Be still. 
This is not an affair of intelligence. It be- 
longs to the awful, mysterious kingdom of 
grace.'* Let us not judge these fathers too 
harshly. It was the premises from which they 
began their argument that misled them. Their 
conclusions were not the result of bad logic, 
but of a wrong starting-point. For religion is 
not, as they supposed, a plan, but it is the 
workings of an immanent, ever-present Deity; 
not a mere consequence of a dead Saviour's 
sacrifice, but the actual influence of a risen 
Lord. 

And note how clearly this true theory lets 
the light in upon this dark problem. Being 
the influence of a personality, it follows the 
laws of personality, necessarily. Now, it is 
among the commonest facts known to us that 
one can open or close himself to another's 
influence. Going among bad men, we can 
resist the evil effects of their companionship, 
or we can submit, as we choose. Associating 
with a high-minded, large, and courteous 
character, we can rejoice in the influence of 
him upon us, and cooperate with it by our 
will, or we can set ourselves against it. And 
it is well known to all who have any powers 
of observation, that if we are brought in con- 
tact with a noble and generous nature, and if 

139 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

we do not yield to the play of his character 
upon us, if we do not assent to his influence 
in us, we are almost invariably driven to the 
opposite extreme^ and become even more hate- 
ful and spiteful than we were before. Such 
was the effect of Jesus on the Pharisees; He 
actually made them worse; they became 
more firmly set in their bigotry and self con- 
ceit because of Him. It is as if a good man 
comes to us as a force the heart instinctively 
recognizes, a force which, if not surrendered 
to, arouses all the opposition in us and actu- 
ally develops still further meanness in us. 

One does not have to be a theologian, there- 
fore, to understand this "mystery of iniquity. " 
Just plain common sense is all that is needed. 
When we get the right point of view we can 
see very much further into the great prob- 
lem of lost humanity. It is said, to give one 
illustration, when Pharaoh refused to let the 
Israelites go, after he had been frightened 
into a promise by the display of Moses' 
power, that *'God hardened Pharaoh's heart." 
It was not the devil, nor Pharaoh himself, but 
God that hardened his heart. But how could 
a good God do this? After being hardened 
was he not then less to blame for the next lie? 
The plain explanation is in this law above 
referred to — that it is in the nature of human 
beings to harden when they resist softening 

140 



DEFINITIONS 

influences. Nature is God ; and nature drives 
further down those who struggle against going 
up. So Paul says that '*even as they did not 
like to retain God in their knowledge, God 
gave them over to a reprobate mind.*' ^ 

This brings us to the next term that figures 
so largely in Christian speech, " faith.*' 
Faith is merely the attitude of the man toward 
grace, the influence of God. Grace is God's 
personality acting upon us; faith is the way 
we receive that personality. Grace is the air 
around us, faith the opening of a window. 
Grace is the sunshine; faith is removing the 
shutter. Grace is food; faith, eating. Grace, 
water; faith, drinking. Now, a great many 
have stumbled over faith, as they have over 
grace. They have been unable to rid them- 
selves of the notion that it is some sort of 
magic talent, a fifth sense, supplied miracu- 
lously to some peculiarly religious tempera- 
ments. There never was a greater mistake. 
Faith is **the gift of God," ^ but it is given to 
every one. Nowhere in the Bible are we 
taught to pray for faith, and nowhere is it 
promised to give it if we ask. When some 
did pray for it we do not find the Master 
answered.* Some have the idea that faith is 

» Rom. i. 28. 

* It is a question, however, whether it is faith or grace which 
is called ** the gift of God " in Eph. ii. 8. 

' Luke xvii. $-6. *' The apostles said unto the Lord, Increase 
our faith. And the Lord said, 1/ ye /lad fait A a,s a, grsLinolmvLS' 

141 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

a kind of feeling or spiritual substance that 
God hands down to seekers. But while we 
are told to seek Him to find grace, we are 
never told to go to Him for faith. On the 
contrary we are distinctly commanded to 
have faith, as though any one could use it if 
he would. The reason of this is that faith is 
a faculty, just as sight and hearing. It 
would be absurd to close our eyes and pray 
for sight when God has already given us the 
power to see. If you want to hear, listen; 
do not go on clamoring for hearing, but keep 
still and hear. If you want to see-, look ; do 
not complain of lack of seeing, but see. If 
you wish to know God, to feel His grace, have 
faith; do not go on stultifying common sense 
by praying for a power which is inherent in 
your spirit, as sight and hearing are inherent 
in your body. 

The matter is so serious that it behooves 
us to make it still plainer. Faith is the yield- 
ing of the man to the influence of God. It is 
not situated in the feelings or in the intellect, 
but principally in the will. Now, the will is 
the one most distinctly human part of a man. 
It is an imperial fragment of God, endowed, 
as God is endowed, with absolute self-mas- 
tery. It is the only thing in us that can 

tard seed," etc. When the father of the boy afflicted with a dumb 
spirit prayed: '* Lord, I believe; help Thou my unbelief," no at- 
tention was paid apparently to his request, but the Master acted 
upon his declaration. 

142 



DEFINITIONS 

resist God; He may change our feelings or 
disorder our brain, but He will never lay 
finger of compulsion on the will. Looking at 
the wills of men we can echo the Psalmist, **I 
said, ye are gods." It is this that makes us 
precious in His sight above all His other 
creatures; for it is by virtue of this we are 
called "the sons of God.*' Without it we 
would be only God's machines acting like 
engines, or God's beasts acting from instinct. 
The appeal of the Father is not to our feel- 
ings, nor our understandings, but always to 
our will; **Whosoever will, let him come. "^ 
Therefore it is for acts of the will alone that 
we are responsible. We cannot control our 
feelings or opinions, except very indirectly, 
but we can do exactly as we please with our 
wills. 

Thus it is that because faith is of the will, 
it is the fatal element. ''Without faith it is 
impossible to please God." ^ We are told by 
the departing Jesus that those who have faith 
shall be saved, and those who have it not shall 
be damned.^ ''Through faith," says Paul, 
"we are saved,"* and we are "justified by 
faith." ^ So, by instances that the reader's 
memory can multiply by the score, faith is 
insisted upon as the one great essential saving 

* Rev. xxii. 17. * Eph. ii. 8. 

' Heb. xi. 6. • Rom. v. i. 



* Mark xvi. 16. 



143 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

act of the human spirit. All things else God 
will give us; not this. Jesus Christ is called 
our peace, our justification, our sanctifica- 
tion, and all our other blessings; He is not 
called our faith. Faith is distinctly, purely 
ours. Why? Simply because it is the willing- 
ness of the man to receive the influence of 
God; it is man's consent to God's work in 
him; it is man's cooperation with the immanent 
^"(ivcW s operation in him. To go back to our 
old terms, religion being the personal influ- 
ence of God, faith is the man's allowing that 
influence to work in him. 

When we come to examine the Scripture 
usages of faith we shall, however, find the 
word employed with a variety of shades of 
meaning; but they are all easily traceable by 
common sense and dignified laws of interpre- 
tation to the one meaning insisted upon above 
as the main signification. Every word, and 
especially a word of spiritual import, branches 
off into many secondary meanings according 
as the different parts of its significance are 
respectively to be emphasized.^ 

When it is said that faith is of the will alone 

' Thus the word •* see " means to behold with the eye; but, 
again, with the mind's eye, that is, to understand; and again, to 
follow with the attention, being thus used in Shakespeare; and 
again, to visit, as "to see a friend"; and again to experience, as 
*'to see military service" ; and again to accompany, as "to see 
one aboard the cars"; and again, to help, as **to see him 
through"; and again, to take care of, as in Chaucer, "God see 
you"; and again, when the word descends to colloquialisms, to 
tind out, as " I will see if this has been done" ; or, in gambling, to 

144 



DEFINITIONS 

it is not meant there is no intellectual ele- 
ment in it; for man's being is not put up in 
separate sections, each distinct from the 
others, but will, intellect, and feeling are 
interwoven. Therefore we sometimes find 
the intellectual phase emphasized, and faith 
is used in the sense of accepting Christ and 
His Gospel as true. For certainly we cannot 
be influenced by any man or thing except we 
consider them to be realities; none is affected 
by an idle tale. Some there be who take evil 
advantage of this statement, saying: *'I am 
not convinced of the historical verity of the 
account of Jesus in the gospels; hence I am 
excusable for having no faith.*' But this is 
making the intellectual side the only side of 
faith; whereas the most important side is the 
will side. Such a person, even doubtful of 
the Gospel's accuracy, certainly admits in 
himself a sense of right and wrong, a feeling 
of Ought; and this is the voice of God in all 
souls, though it is more or less covered with 
human imperfection. Now let him open his 
heart to as much of God as he does believe in, 
this conscience within him, and follow that; 
let him consecrate himself always to obey the 
highest, noblest impulses and to renounce 

meet and accept a bet; and so forth. But all of these senses in 
which the word is used are easily traceable to the one original 
sense of being aware of an object by the eye. In like manner the 
diverging significations of faith are manifest offspring of the one 
parent signification, that is, the opening of the soul to the influ- 
ence of God. 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

the wrong and base, and so doing he will 
surely be led to the perception of the grace 
and beauty of the perfect face of God in 
Christ Jesus; thus *'the Father draws him to 
Christ/'^ The intellect is a slippery and 
easily confused thing, ethically; it acts truly 
only when clarified by a firm will obeying the 
noblest convictions. Thus Christ: '*If any 
man do His will, he shall know the doctrine. '* ^ 
Some others unduly emphasize the sentimen- 
tal side of faith, making it a matter of feel- 
ing; and as feelings come and go like the 
wind so they helplessly rejoice if they feel con- 
fidence and mourn if they feel it not. But 
it is wrong to put feeling, one of the maids 
of honor, upon the throne of will, the king; 
from such usurpation always results anarchy. 
Religion is not a matter of temperament, else 
certainly God would have made all men alike 
in this respect; and because He made all 
kinds of dispositions, grave and gay, quiet 
and energetic, visionary and pragmatic, credu- 
lous and skeptical, enthusiastic and conser- 
vative, it is shown that He intended one kind 
as well as another to have faith with ease. 
So among Christ's apostles were impulsive 
Peter and doubting Thomas, childlike Nath- 
aniel and speculative Philip, sensitive John 
and practical James. It is not harder for 

* John vi. 44. * John vii. 17. 

146 



DEFINITIONS 

some dispositions to be Christian than for 
others; it is a reflection upon our Maker's 
justice to say so. It is not harder for one 
man to open his heart to God than it is for 
another; but it certainly seems to be when 
we conceive of religion as a set of rules or a 
mere scheme of dogma^ to be obeyed in the one 
case, to be mentally assented to in the other. 
But religion being a divine influence of a 
Spirit immanent in us and around us, it mixes 
as well with one sort of constitution and 
frame of mind as with another. 

Faith being the degree to which we open to 
God's influence, it is made the measure of 
His work in us. Thus Jesus in His miracles 
often said: *' According to your faith be it 
unto you," or som'e such phrase.^ Peter, with 
his whole being alive to Christ's influence, 
walked on the waves, but as doubt closed the 
door of his soul the power of God left him, 
and he sank.^ Of the ruler, Jesus said He 
had not found so great faith as his in Israel, 
for that man was singularly frank and sincere 
in his taking as a matter of course the divine 
power of the Master.^ Faith is the gauge of 
development, we proceed '*from faith to 
faith, "* growing just as we admit Christ's 
influence fully into our lives. 

' Matt. ix. 29, etc. ^ Matt, viii, 10. 

* Matt. xiv. 29. * Rom. i. 17. 

H7 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

Take now a few passages of Scripture that 
bring out the varying shades of this one 
thought. "Justification by faith," the war- 
cry of the Reformation, means not justifica- 
tion by mentally assenting to a scheme of 
salvation, but made to be just persons because 
we are willing to receive God's Spirit into 
ourselves and cooperate with Him. *'The 
just shall live by faith" ^ — that is, not by try- 
ing to obey a list of rules in the law, but by 
receiving God. It is this that makes life in 
us ; for we get eternal life not by our acts, 
but by taking into our souls the bread of life. 
So Jesus: '*He that belie veth on Me shall 
never thirst,"^ and, **He that believeth on 
Me hath everlasting life. " ^ He uses **believ- 
ing on Him" and "eating the bread or drink- 
ing the water of life" interchangeably in the 
sixth chapter of John. Paul prays for the 
Ephesians "that Christ may dwell in their 
hearts by faith";* faith is that which admits 
and keeps Him there. Christ speaks of Him- 
self as the world's light; it was the condem- 
nation of men, not that they had sinned, but 
that, when light came, they chose rather 
darkness;^ and speaking of men's receiving 
this light and walking in it. He uses faith 
(belief) as the term, thus, "I am come a light 

* Rom. i. 17. * Eph. iii. 17. 

* John iv. 14. * John iii. 19. 



* John Yi. 47. 



148 



DEFINITIONS 

into the world, that whosoever believeth on 
Me should not abide in darkness.*' * 

That faith is not our assent to a proclaimed 
**plan of salvation, * ' but is the reception of the 
influence of a living, present, risen Lord, who 
as a Spirit is ever with us, is plain from the 
fact that faith is rarely^linked to the death, 
but almost always to the resurrection of 
Christ, or to Christ Himself as an existing 
personage.^ The apostles went not forth 
urging men to believe in the efficacy of 
Christ's death, so much as to believe in Christ 
'* who is risen. *' ^ They exhort all to **believe 
on the Lord Jesus Christ,"* and speak of 
** faith toward our Lord,'*^ **faith in the Son 
of God,*'® using the term in precisely the 
same phase of meaning that Christ Himself 
used it when He so often said, * 'Believe Me," 
*'He that believeth on Me," etc.^ Thus the 
Gospel after Jesus' death was the same Gos- 
pel He preached — to wit, faith in a living, 
present God in Christ. '*If Christ be not 
risen," exclaimed Paul, *'your faith is vain, 
our preaching is vain; ye are yet in your 
sins";^ but according to the Latin theology, 
our salvation hinged upon the dead Christ; 

^ John xii. 46. Belief and faith are the same in the original. 

* Acts XX. 21; xvi. 31; xix. 4; Rom. iv. 24; Heb. xi. 6, etc. 
^ Rom. iv. 24. Acts v. 30-31. ® Gal. ii. 20. 

* Acts xvi. 31. ^ John vi. 47, etc. 
■ Acts XX. 21. ® I Cor. XV. 17. 

149 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 
that it was that made us not **yet in 



sins." 



The true meaning of faith further appears 
where the author of the Epistle to the He- 
brews says that preaching did some persons 
no good, ''not being mixed with faith/' ^ as 
though faith alone gave the ideas of the Gos- 
pel regenerative power. Sometimes we hear 
a phrase nowadays like ''appropriating faith," 
and are told that we must not only believe in 
Christ, but appropriate Him. This is feeling 
after the truth; although, once we correctly 
apprehend what religion is, we see there is 
no other kind of faith, in a Scriptural sense, 
but the appropriating kind. 

That faith is the receiving, as grace is the 
giving forth, of God's influence is perceived 
from frequent texts that compare and con- 
trast the two. Paul beautifully and accu- 
rately defines the respective terms when he 
writes, "By grace ye are saved through 
faith" ;^ God's influence saves us out of a life 
of sin, and our faith is that which admits this 
power. Again he states, "We have access 
by faith into this grace wherein we stand" ;^ 
through faith we come into the play of God's 
regenerating force. He puts the true Chris- 
tian theory when he says concisely, "Being 
justified freely by His grace, through the re- 

> Heb. iv. 2. « Eph. ii. 8. ^ Rom. v 2. 

150 



DEFINITIONS 

demption which is in Christ Jesus . . . 
through faith in His blood.'* ^ That is to 
say, grace or God's immanent power is what 
saves us; the atonement is the tangible sym- 
bol and condition of that power; and it all 
comes to us by our admission of its influence 
into us by faith. 

We pass next to Righteousness, the effect 
of Grace shining into us through the door of 
Faith. It has been a standing wonder to 
many why Paul seemed so jealous of any 
morality that was not of faith. The vehe- 
mence of his argument against *'the righteous- 
ness which is of the law*' has swung many 
minds, insecurely anchored in the truth, loose 
from their moorings. Antinomianism,or that 
doctrine which holds that it makes no differ- 
ence how we act, just so we have faith, has 
stained the history of the church in all ages 
with its inevitable filth. Even those who 
would not admit themselves partakers of this 
heresy have considered faith as somehow an 
equivalent for good works, a substitute for 
them in a measure. Now, we perceive the 
root of this misconception in the same old 
notion of salvation as a plan, a plan for sav- 
ing men into another country called heaven. 
Having this false subsumption in our minds, 
when we read Paul's writings about the two 

' Rom. iii. 24. 

15^ 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

kinds of righteousness, of faith and of law, 

and about imputed righteousness and the like, 

we are kept from antinomianism only by the 

sound and ineradicable repugnance to sin in 

our instincts; we have to close the Book and 

say simply that it surely seems to put good 

deeds at a discount, but it cannot be that we 

^ understand it. Thus we lose the whole force 

f of the beautiful and striking language of Paul 

• and force ourselves to consider it a mystery. 

Let us now apply even also to this matter of 
imputed righteousness the touchstone of our 
conception of religion as God's influence. 
That influence is called grace, its acceptance 
is called faith. Let us, in this light, read 
Paul. There is but one who is good, even 
God; all good deeds must be His kind of 
deeds; anything not like Him is bad; there- 
fore righteousness is simply doing as God's 
influence causes us to do. The natural order 
is: grace the sun, faith the tree assimilating 
the sun's light and heat, righteousness the 
fruit borne by the tree. In one sense right- 
eousness is all-important, for the object of a 
tree is fruit. But there is something more 
important to the tree^ if we may personify it, 
than fruit, and that is, that it be alive. Life 
is the best of all. And you may pin apples 
on a Christmas tree, but it is still dead. Life 
comes not by fruits; fruits come from life. 

152 



DEFINITIONS 

The difficulty with the moralist is that he 
reverses the natural order. Good deeds are 
still good even in a bad man, but they never 
can make him good, never can impart to him 
that eternal life which naturally is prolific in 
good actions like the apple tree bears apples; 
he will with all his good deeds be but a Christ- 
mas tree, dazzling perhaps in his outward 
acts pinned on by much effort, but yet dead. 
God is a Grower, not an Artificer. His plan, 
as is manifest in nature, is to make things 
come by a natural development, not artifi- 
cially. So He desires the human being to 
grow righteousness, not merely to do it. Thus 
Christ, "I am the vine, ye are the branches. 
Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear 
much fruit. **^ Thus we see our Heavenly 
Father, not as an impatient schoolmaster 
or petulant captain, caring most of all that 
His rules be kept, and angry with us when 
they are not; but as a Father indeed whose 
rules are nothing in themselves but aids to 
growth, a Father whose chief care is that we 
develop in us that kind of life which is true 
joy and peace and liberty. 

This is the key to Paul's reasoning. He 
will insist on apple-tree righteousness and 
warn us against Christmas-tree righteousness. 
He is talking to men who seek life by putting 

^ John XV. S. 8. 

153 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

on the effects of life to cover inward death. 
When he says, *'A man is justified by faith 
without the deeds of the law,"* it is intellec- 
tual felony to say he means that a just man 
does not keep the law; but his point is that 
deeds of law have nothing to do with justify- 
ing him, making him just and good. That is 
accomplished by God's influence coming into 
him by faith. Unfortunately, doing good is 
the whole matter of religion in most people's 
minds, simply because by one's deeds his reli- 
gion is tested; but in Paul's mind life was the 
whole matter, and doing good but the mani- 
festation of that life; they see the shadow, 
Paul saw the substance. Paul was just as 
earnest as any one that Christians should do 
right. He execrates over and over again the 
works of evil and uncleanness, and exalts vir- 
tuous actions, but is careful to call the latter 
**fruit of the Spirit,"^ lest any man be 
tempted to merely put them on and not grow 
them. As for absolute righteousness the 
Christian teaching is more severe and exact- 
ing than the old Mosaic law or any other sys- 
tem of morality ever known. In the Sermon 
on the Mount Christ unfolded the inner 
meaning of right doing and rolled back upon 
the conscience of the race even right thinking 
and desiring. He declared that ''except 

* Rom. iii. 28. « Gal. v. aa. 

154 



DEFINITIONS 

your righteousness exceed that of the scribes 
and Pharisees ye shall in no case enter the 
kingdom of heaven. *' ^ Thus does the **im- 
puted righteousness" exalt and not let down 
the standard of morality. 

The righteousness of faith is higher and 
purer than the counterfeit kind made by rules, 
because it is "of God" — that is, it is the eifect 
of God*s working in us. As He is absolutely 
good, so a man can do good only as he is 
absorbed by the imitation and emulation of 
love^ into Him. *'But now," says the great 
apostle, '*the righteousness of God without 
the law is manifested"; a righteousness not 
formed by rules and statutes; "being wit- 
nessed by the law"; looking at those old 
commandments we see that the operation of 
the life of God in us results in true divine 
deeds; "even the righteousness of God"; 
not ours except as we do it having come under 
His influence; "which is by faith of Jesus 
Christ" ; for it is as the Christ that God shows 
Himself to us, through Him God's influence 
reaches us; "unto all and upon all of them 
that believe";^ for this supernal influence 
enters our life only as we allow it, agree 
with it, submit to its effect upon us, or, in 
other words, have faith. 

Sometimes Paul calls this imputed righteous- 

* Matt. V. 20. * Rom. iii. 21, 22. 

155 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

ness. With the old plan-salvation in their 
minds men supposed this meant that God by 
an odd sort of bookkeeping credited a man 
with all good deeds if he would assent to the 
truth of the scheme He had proposed. But 
the fact is that imputed righteousness comes 
to the same thing as the righteousness of God 
in us, when we conceive religion to be God's 
influence, not His artificial scheme. **Abra- 
ham believed God'*;^ not merely had confi- 
dence that what God said was true, although 
this is of course a part of faith, but he was a 
God's-man; of all the world in those days he 
was the man who associated with God, walked 
with God, and consequently came under God's 
influence; "and it was counted unto him for 
righteousness"; this yielding to God's lead- 
ings was esteemed by God a righteousness 
just the same as if Abraham had been obey- 
ing a written law; *' therefore it is of faith 
that it might be by grace" ; showing that true 
righteousness was manifested by this man be- 
fore ever Moses gave the law, a righteousness 
obtained by grace, the influence of God, 
received by him through faith. Thus was 
'* Abraham the father of us all, like unto Him 
whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth 
the dead"; for as Abraham came to assim- 



* What follows is an exposition of Rom. iii., taking these 
verses : 3, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24. 

156 



ti ^ 



DEFINITIONS 

ilate the character of God, so may we by the 
same faith receive this grace. And as Abra- 
ham had righteousness imputed to him, so may 
we all; '*it is for us also, to whom it shall be 
imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up 
Jesus our Lord from the dead**; for we, by 
opening our hearts in faith to the influence 
of this living, risen Lord, also have God's 
righteousness shown in us. This is not our 
righteousness, is Paul's thought, but as it is 
produced in us by the Spirit^ it is called ours, 
imputed to us, or reckoned as ours. Thus it is 
said to be imputed, not because it is Christ's 
righteousness credited to us in the divine 
accounts, but because it is a righteousness 
springing not from us properly, but from the 
influence of another, Christ, in us. It is prop- 
erly our righteousness, and yet it is "the 
righteousness of God" imputed to us, or said 
to be ours, because if we had never been influ- 
enced by Him we would never have had it. 



iS7 



SUGGESTIONS 

Unless we conceive religion to be the personal in- 
fluence of God, the chief terms of religion are but 
algebraic signs or smooth coins. 

No gift of God is of real value unless God goes 
with it. 

Emptied of God a religious term fills with magic. 

Grace is simply the shining of God*s face into our 
hearts. 

A good man is a force the heart intuitively recog- 
nizes; if we do not yield and become better we resist 
and become worse. In this sense Jesus made the 
Pharisees worse than they were before. In this sense 
the Gospel is the damnation of some, as well as the 
salvation of others. 

Faith is principally a function of the will. 

The intellectual and emotional sides of faith are 
secondary; the will side is primary. 

Few errors have done more harm than the notion 
that religion is a matter of temperament. 

Justification means not called just, but made just. 
' Grace is the sunshine, faith the open window. 

The Gospel after Christ's death was the same as 
the Gospel before His death — the acceptance of His 
companionship. 

Religion differs from morality as the apple tree 
differs from the Christmas tree; in one case the ap- 
ples are grown, in the other they are stuck on. 



I4U 



CHAPTER VII 

THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

The Crucifixion is not the Atonement ; It is but a 
Part of the Atonement ; and It, or any Scheme or 
Doctrine of It, is Impotent unless It be Vitalized 
and Completed by the Present Personal Influence 
of God 



"God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto 
Himself."— Paul, 2 Cor. v. 19. 

"God is the perfect Poet, 
Who, in His person, acts His own creations.'* 

Browning, Paracelsus, 

" I wiped away the weeds and foam, 
I fetched my sea-born treasures home; 
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things 
Had left their beauty on the shore. 
With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar." 
Y.WE.^^O^y Each and AIL 

"He folded his arms and began to cry — not aloud; 
he sobbed without making any sound. He could not 
pray; he had prayed day and night for so many 
months; and to-night he could not pray. If one 
might have gone up to him and touched him kindly; 
poor, ugly little thing! Perhaps his heart was almost 
broken. . . . There was a secret he had carried 
in his heart for a year. He had not dared to look at 
it; he had not whispered it to himself; but for a year 
he had carried it. *I hate God!' he said. He had 
told it now! 

" *I love Jesus Christ, but I hate God.* 
"Then he 'got up and buttoned his old coat about 
him. He knew he was certainly lost now; he did not 
care. . . . But, oh! the loneliness, the agonized 
pain! for that night, and for nights and nights to 
come." — Olive Schreiner, Story of an African 
JFarm, p. 15. 



CHAPTER VII 

The question that may already have been 
intruding itself upon the mind of the reader 
who has followed thus far the development of 
this argument is, '*What of the atonement? 
If the operation of religion be confined to the 
personal influence of the immanent Deity, 
how does the death of Christ take away our 
sins?'' 

At first thought, it would seem that one 
holding the view of .religion here set forth 
would be committed to what is called "Bush- 
nell's theory," or the /'moral influence the- 
ory," of the atonement, which, as commonly 
understood, is that the sacrifice of Christ 
affects us only as it is a noble example. 
While the most of those who repudiate Bush- 
nell's position, it would seem, fail to do jus- 
tice to the depth of meaning he gives to the 
example of Christ, at the same time they 
should at least recognize a difference between 
a moral influence theory and a personal influ- 
ence theory. The latter is the theory of this 
essay. It may not be too much to say that 
it is only when we conceive religion, in all its 

i6i 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

workings, to be the personal influence of the 
God-Spirit upon the man-spirit that we can 
get any rational and satisfactory view of the 
atonement at all. 

In a proper conception of God*s work 
among His sons to redeem them the cross of 
Christ has truly the central and chief place. 

"All the light of sacred history 
Gathers round its head sublime." 

Jesus upon the tree of agony is the greatest 
vision mankind has ever seen. This is the 
point from which all Christianity radiates, 
the great fact about which all eternal hope 
clusters. When, therefore, we say that the 
resurrection and not the cross is the dominant 
doctrinal basis of a proper theology we do 
not mean to belittle the latter, but merely to 
say that the mind of the church through the 
Middle Ages and till now has held such a 
mechanical and artificial view of the atone- 
ment as negatives **the power of His resur- 
rection.'* The rising of Jesus from the dead, 
His consequent immanence among men. His 
present work in purging away and bearing the 
sins of men by His own self, these true phases 
of atoning work have been sacrificed to the 
supposed logical necessities of the terms in 
which the death of Christ is spoken of in the 
Scriptures. Atonement is a larger term than 

162 



\ 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

the crucifixion; it is a continuous work being 
carried on now by the Christ-God ; the scene 
upon Calvary was one of its great parts. 

We may not say that the crucifixion has 
been unduly magnified by the Latin theology 
(for it cannot possibly be exalted too much), 
but it has been magnified in the wrong way. 
It has been hardened into a legal device, a 
statutory provision, which by its own force, 
aside from the present work of the Spirit, car- 
ries with it divine forgiveness, under certain 
stipulated conditions. As a mere logical syl- 
logism the death of Jesus has never con- 
vinced the intelligence of mankind that it 
sufficed to take away sin. The church the- 
ologians themselves never professed that their 
theory was reasonable. It was a strange, 
magic, and unreasonable act of God, by which 
He strangely, magically, and unreasonably 
calls men non-sinners although they are sin- 
ners, and takes them to a heaven for which 
they are in no wise fit. 

Actual forgiveness of sins because of the 
sacrifice of Christ, apart from His present 
resurrection power, maintained its hold on 
the mediaeval mind for several reasons. First, 
because all the terms which refer to it in the 
Bible are drawn from Jewish ritualism, and 
thus are most easily fitted to a system of 
dogma whose main idea was to exalt and 

163 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 



uphold the church. In its bald Judaistic 
phraseology, without attempting to bring forth 
the depths of its spiritual significance as is 
done by Paul, it best suited a Christian hier- 
archy. Again, because of the very incon- 
clusiveness of the argument, that because 
the Son of God died once, therefore all be- 
lievers on Him should escape punishment, 
because of the element of magic in this, it 
appealed to the superstitious debasement 
of reason and emphasis of credulity which 
characterized the Middle Ages. Again, as 
Christ's death was a bloody and fearful spec- 
tacle it attracted an age that was fierce, 
gloomy, and cruel, an age whose chief theo- 
logic excellence was the stress it laid upon 
the torture and woe consequent upon sin. It 
was a tragic age and a magic age, and took to 
a religion whose keynote was a magical 
tragedy. 

Besides this, it may be that it was a part 
of the divine plan that under this gloomy view 
of the process of divine forgiveness mankind 
should lie while their spiritual powers were 
as yet feeble and while the public mind was 
still gross and materialistic. It was a part of 
the education of the race, which has always 
proceeded from symbol to reality, from form 
to truth, from husk to contents. Expecting 
a princely Messiah, sitting upon a golden 

164 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

throne, or leading the chosen people to a war 
of conquest over the Gentiles, the Jews kept 
alive the hope of His coming; yet when He 
came His real reign and methods seemed so 
weak and intangible that His people knew 
Him not. Even so, holding to the atone- 
ment in Christ as simply a legal setting aside 
of the verdict against men by a divine substi- 
tute paying the full blood price, the Latin 
church preserved the idea of atonement until 
men should become able to see through this 
figure and symbol the sublime reality, how 
the Christ-Spirit now does actually purge sins. 
And as the Jews in Jesus' day thought that 
the mild Galilean blasphemed when He pre- 
tended to be that glorious Messiah of whom 
the prophets had spoken, so now any one who 
attempts to abate one jot or tittle from the 
legalistic, artificial view of the atonement, 
and to show that the reality is a present and 
spiritual fact, instead of a past and ritualistic 
fact, must be prepared to incur the wrath of 
some of those who are zealous for the supposed 
''faith of our fathers.'' 

The two views of the atonement commonly 
held by the church, and taught to-day, are 
what are called the substitutional and the 
governmental theories. It is not the purpose 
of this writing to examine these views in 
detail, nor to undertake to refute the argu- 

165 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

ments by which they are commonly supported. 
Indeed, they are both right as Judaistic or 
controversial views, but as commonly under- 
stood they are not Christian. We do not 
deny their reasonings, nor deny that those 
reasonings bring properly their conclusions; 
but we simply set aside their whole point of 
view, and insist that they have failed to rise 
above the level of Judaistic thought. As a 
substitute Christ does bear our sins upon His 
own body; as a dying Son He does vindicate 
the unbending morality of God, but not in 
the way usually held. We are not saved as 
the conclusion of a syllogism of which Christ's 
death and man's sin are the premises. We 
are not saved as a necessary entry on the 
divine court records made there, because we, 
by an act called belief, are credited with the 
full merits of Jesus' blood. These bare and 
lifeless statements leave out the very force 
that makes the atonement atone — namely, 
*'the power of His resurrection." A present, 
spiritual Saviour alone can give these propo- 
sitions life, a Saviour who bears with Him in 
His present work all the equipment of His 
great sacrifice. 

When we come to put the knife of common 
sense and sane biblical interpretation into 
these theories, to divide the true from the 
false, we find precisely the same kind of a 

i66 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

mistake here that we found in the common 
religious notions to which allusion has been 
made in former chapters. We discover a per- 
sistent taking of the lower instead of the 
upper thought, a perception of the material 
and a missing of the spiritual meaning. In 
fact, it is the old enemy of the higher life, 
materialism, that has wrought as evil effects 
upon theology as upon philosophy. Material- 
ism, a lack of spiritual perception, slew 
Christ; it has never failed to destroy the qual- 
ity of the painter's and of the sculptor's 
work; it corrupts literature; it debases poli- 
tics; it prostitutes science to be the cover and 
concealment instead of the revelation of God; 
and we need not wonder that it has trans- 
formed the warm and breathing theology of 
Paul and the early Greek fathers into the 
symmetrical and dead statues of Augustine and_ 
Calvin. It is not strange that an automatic 
and spiritless atonement scheme is held by 
those who suppose salvation to be merely a sav- 
ing of men from punishment, instead of a trans- 
formation of their characters from sinfulness 
to holiness; who conceive the object of the 
Saviour to be to get men into a heaven-place, 
instead of getting them into a heaven-condi- 
tion ; who imagine religion to be a plan instead 
of a power of growth. The crude types of 
Jewish ritualism were built into a logical sys- 

167 -^"' 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

tern by the Latin mind ; Oriental imagery be- 
came Latin dogma; the typical "shadows of 
things to come/* were hardened into doc- 
trinal stones. 

Let us now proceed to examine how the 
hypothesis, that religion is the personal influ- 
ence of God, gives clearness and beauty, 
coherency and reasonableness, to the atone- 
ment in Christ. The atoning death of Jesus 
is alluded to by the sacred writers in peculiar 
terms that do not at all, at first glance, seem 
to conform to the notion that its effect lies 
entirely within the channel of personal influ- 
ence. These terms are drawn from the Jew- 
ish sacrificial rites, and have about them the 
very air of a contrivance. Are we to brush 
them aside as mere symbols, and are we to 
say, as many in revolting against the churchly 
teaching have said, that they are but figures 
of speech, and that our Saviour's death was 
merely a sublime example for us to imitate in 
its spirit? By no means. While these terms 
are figures, yet they are divine figures, 
ordained and set forth of God in order to pre- 
pare those forms of thought in which the 
death of Jesus was to be rightly considered. 

That death was the fulfillment of all types. 
First there was the Lamb type; He was **the 
Lamb of God,'*^ *'the propitiation for our 



* John i. 29. 



168 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

sins,'*^ ^'delivered for our offenses,"^ etc. 
Again, He fulfilled the Priest type; all the 
order of priestly service was to prepare men*s 
minds for the character of His atoning work ; 
after Him should be no more priests, even as 
no more slain lambs upon the altar; He is 
the "one mediator between God and man,*' ' 
''a priest forever,'' * etc. Again, He is said 
to take away our sins; '*the blood of Jesus 
Christ cleanseth us from all sin, " ^ etc. He 
also is said to bear our sins, as the slain altar 
victim typically bore away the Jews' sins; 
"bore our sins in His own body on the tree, "^ 
etc. He is further said to have bought us, 
redeemed us, or paid a price for us, by His 
death ; for Peter says we are not bought by 
silver and gold, but by the precious blood of 
Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish.'' Into 
one or another of these five forms all that is 
anywhere said in the New Testament con- 
cerning Christ's atoning work will fall. 

Before taking up each of these figures, let 
us be reminded of the relation which the fulfill- 
ment of a type must bear to the type itself. 
We should bear in mind that the reality will 
be quite as unlike as it will be like the type. 
If it resembles the type completely, it will not 

' I John ii. 2. ■ I John i. 7. 

* Rom. iv. 25. « I Pet. ii. 24. 
» I Tim. ii. 5. ^ i Pet. i. 19. 

* Heb. vii. 3. 

169 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

be a fulfillment at all, but merely another, 
although a higher type. The fact, indeed, 
should resemble the symbol in form, but will 
differ in contents. 

Now, we all know how perfectly Christ's 
death and ministry conformed to the method 
and plan of Jewish sacrifices. Wherein did it 
differ? In contents — as a man from a statue, 
as a flower from a picture, as an idea from a 
word. The arrangement or covenant by 
which God is to forgive men by Jesus Christ is 
thus plainly stated by the apostles to be a new 
covenant, one entirely different from the 
Mosaic covenant. For the author of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews says that the sacrifices 
and altar ceremonies of the old regime were 
**the example and shadow of heavenly things; 
but now, hath Christ become the mediator of 
a better covenant.'*^ How is the new better 
than the old? It is in that the Jews under 
the old sacrifices knew not why they were for- 
given, except that it was the promise of God. 
The sole merits in Jewish sacrifice were obe- 
dience and faith. It was a locked mystery. 
But the new covenant is an unlocked mys- 
tery. Paul says he is commissioned to declare 
this secret openly to the Gentiles. In fact, the 
word **mystery,*' in the usage of the apostle's 
time, meant just the opposite from what it 

* Heb. viii. 6. 

170 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

commonly means now; for to us it means 
something hidden, but in apostolic usage it 
signified something hitherto concealed but now 
disclosed and made plain. Thus Paul writes 
that he is a minister of God to declare *'the 
mystery which hath been hid from ages, but 
now is made manifest to His saints.'* ^ 

Taking a general view of the whole work 
of Christ's atonement, the main thought in it 
all is that of sacrifice. This is also the dom- 
inant idea in the Mosaic ceremonies. But the 
latter had to do with only the sacrifices of 
* 'bulls and goats, by which it is not possible 
to take away sins"^ — that is to say, sacrifice, 
in itself, is of no avail. (**Go ye and learn 
what this meaneth," said Christ; **I will have 
mercy and not sacrifice."^) Thus any view 
of the atonement which makes God to for- 
give men because the sacrifice of Christ in 

' Col. i. 26. The word mystery is carried bodily over from the 
Greek musterion, which in classical usage means those religious 
rites and knowledge, hidden to the outer world, but revealed to 
the initiated. Thus the Christian is as one ioining a secret soci- 
ety; to the world all is sign and symbol, but to him ail is, or 
ought to be, plain. Thus Paul: ** I would not that ye be ignorant 
of this mystery," Rom. xi. 25; "Behold, I shew you a mystery," 
I Cor. XV. 51; "(God) \i2iyiii^ made known unto me the mystery," 
Eph. i. 9 ; "By revelation He made known unto me the mystery," 
Eph. iii. 3; ** When ye read, ye may understand my knowledge of 
the mystery," Eph. iii. 4; '*God .... would make known — the 
riches— of this mystery among the Gentiles^ which is, Christ in 
(or among) you." Col. i. 27; **To the full assurance of under- 
standing, to the acknowledgment (epignosis, accurate knowl- 
edge) ofthe mystery of God," Col. ii. 2; '* Great is the mvstery of 
godliness," m i Tim. iii 16 means, not that it is very deep and 
abstruse, but that it is glorious, and majestic, as the rest of the 
verse shows. Nowhere is mystery used to mean something not 
to be understood at all. 

« Heb. X. 4. 3 Matt. ix. 13. 

171 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

itself is sufficient as supplying a substitute for 
them, is merely a mended Judaistic scheme, 
with a better sacrifice but no better covenant. 
To hold that men are forgiven simply because 
Christ died, is to make the fulfillment exactly 
like the type, just as narrow and as imperfect. 
But the death of Jesus differed in meaning from 
the death of lambs, bulls, and goats in the 
old order quite as much as it resembled them in 
form. That difference was that His death 
was a self -sacrifice. 

Sacrifice means nothing at all in itself, but 
only as a type ; but self-sacrifice does mean 
something in itself. The slaying of innocent 
lambs was the symbol of the self-chosen death 
of the sinless, incarnate God. This is the 
precise argument of the author of the Epistle 
of the Hebrews: 

''For it is not possible that the blood of 
the bulls and goats should take away sins. 

"Wherefore when He cometh into this 
world. He saith. Sacrifice and offering Thou 
wouldst not, but a body Thou hast prepared 
Me: 

**In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sins 
Thou hast had no pleasure. 

''Then said I, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O 
God.'^^ 

Thus the main idea that will, almost by 

» Heb. X. 4-7. 

172 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

itself alone, correct and make reasonable our 
notion of the atonement is this idea of self- 
sacrifice, found in Paul: **God was in Christ 
reconciling the world unto Himself/' ^ As if 
by one stroke all the irreconcilable absurdities 
in the common view of the attitude of **the 
different actors" in the atonement disappear, 
when we remember that Christ's suffering was 
God's suffering. God and Christ are one, 
not two. It was "the fullness of the Godhead 
bodily" ^ that endured the agony of the cruci- 
fixion. This changes the scene at once from 
that of a merciless Justice expending its 
wrath upon an innocent victim, to one in 
which a dear and loving Father Himself comes 
to die for us. The aspect alters immediately 
from a Judge, driven by the limitations of 
His own statutes to extricate Himself from a 
dilemma by slaying His own Son, to a Creator 
who in the fullness of time and at the proper 
place in the development of mankind reveals 
Himself as redeeming men by participating 
in their struggles and sufferings. 

The very innocence of the Christ-God gives 
His sufferings a redemptive force. There is 
nothing that redeems when the wicked suffer 
the effects of their deeds. It is only when 
the innocent are involved in the misery and 
destruction which sin brings, that sinners 

* 2 Cor. V. 19. ' Col. ii. 9. 

173 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

begin to see the '* sinfulness of sin." Thus 
Jesus vindicates the morality of God; thus 
He maintains the righteousness of the divine 
government; not because God could not for- 
give until He had His "pound of flesh," not 
because some one must bear on himself all the 
tortures of hell which the divine statutes de- 
clare to be the prescribed penalty of sin, not 
because literally 

"AtX)ne deep draught of love 
He drank damnation dry," 

but because only by the self-sacrifice of the 
innocent and upright can there be brought 
home to the hearts of offenders the wretched 
and awful results of sin and rebellion. In- 
stead, therefore, of holding that the death of 
Jesus ''establishes the law" — that is, makes 
manifest the inflexible righteousness of the 
law — by supplying a victim who received all 
the penalty upon Himself, it is better to say 
that He "establishes the law" by revealing 
the evil results of sin upon One who was pure, 
harmless, and undefiled. As the law of 
Moses revealed sin by holding up the perfect 
code of morality before men, so the life and 
death of Jesus much more revealed sin by 
disclosing to mankind what sin will do to a 
holy Being. The Latin theology is ever con- 
cerned about penalties and punishment; the 

174 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

Pauline theology speaks constantly of sinful- 
ness and the evil life. 

It may be objected that this view obscures 
the personality of the Son as distinct from 
that of the Father; but the answer to this is, 
that whatever may have been the mysterious 
difference between those two persons, we are 
certainly warranted by Jesus' own words in 
thoroughly identifying them in the great work 
of redemption. In an effort to construct a 
logically operative atonement theory the two 
persons of the Godhead have been separated. 
The consequence has been a satisfaction to 
the reasoning processes of the mind, but a 
dissatisfaction to the heart. The moment we 
make two actors in the great atonement scene, 
in order to make it fit the precise terminology 
of Jewish ritualism, that moment we have 
sacrificed the reality to the type. The evasive 
tincture of Arianism is that which gives an 
unpleasant and unlovely hue to this great act. 
For God to visit our punishment upon another 
does not reveal Him as One * 'altogether 
lovely"; but for God incarnate in the Eternal 
Son to take our sin upon Himself — this has 
the pathetic touch of love. To suppose God 
to be compelled by a something called Justice 
to submit His Son to the death of the cross, 
does not give a very high idea of justice, but 
gives to justice a cruel and narrow meaning, 

175 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

and exalts it, as an attribute of God, above 
and beyond God Himself. But for God to 
be so full of the essential element of justice 
that He is not willing for His children to 
struggle on hopelessly in the losing battle 
against sin, but is moved to "take upon Him- 
self the form of a servant' V and come down 
to live, suffer, and die under the same load of 
sin's wretched consequences which weighs on 
men, this makes Christ's death to exemplify 
and exalt, not a stern Justice superior to God 
Himself, but a Just God in whom Justice, 
Love, and Mercy are as if different gleams 
from various facets of the same jewel. 

The preparatory and symbolic truth, there- 
fore, of the Mosaic ritualism was that salva- 
tion was to be by sacrifice; the *'new and 
better covenant" of the real atonement was 
that salvation is by self-sacrifice. Thus is the 
reality like, yet unlike, the symbol. And, 
indeed, self-sacrifice is the law of any kind of 
salvation among sentient spirits. The ene- 
mies of Jesus told the truth when they taunted 
Him as He hung upon the cross, saying, "He 
saved others; Himself He cannot save." We 
see that of course He could not. It becomes 
apparent that as no man can save another, in 
any small degree, and save himself, too, so 
even the Almighty could not (the words are 
used reverentially and with a view only to 

176 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

their grammatical significance) save men and 
save Himself also. The deplorable state of 
mankind called for so priceless a ransom that 
humanity could not furnish it; sacrifice, the 
greatest men could offer, was too small to 
avail ; nothing but a divine self-sacrifice could 
meet the requirements. 

This spirit of self-sacrifice is to come also 
upon us; we are also to give ourselves for a 
lost world. This thought is frequently found 
in the New Testament. If the atonement be 
merely a device, such a thought would be 
presumption, if not blasphemy. But when 
we understand the death upon the cross to be 
a sublime revelation of God, and not merely 
a divine piece of machinery, we see how we 
can give ourselves for those about us, even as 
He, the All-Father, gave Himself for *'the sins 
of the whole world.'' How can the old me- 
chanical idea of Christ's atoning death fit 
such a passage as this? "As Thou hast sent 
Me into the world," said Jesus, "even so 
have I also sent them into the world. " ^ Thus 
He spoke in His last great prayer. Again, 
after His resurrection. He met with His 
disciples and once more declared, "As the 
Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. "^ 
Paul also speaks of "the fellowship of His 

* John xvii. i8. * John xx. 21. 



177 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

sufferings" ; * and in another place writes that 
he endures all afflictions '*for the elect's 
sake/*' He even uses this remarkable 
language: "I rejoice in my sufferings for you, 
and fill up that which is behind of the afflic- 
tions of Christ in my flesh for His body's 
sake, which is the church. " ^ He goes in fact 
to the extreme length of saying that he could 
wish himself accursed from Christ for his fel- 
low-countrymen's sake.* The atonement has, 
therefore, for its great underlying law of 
power, that through it God's influence, as a 
spirit of self-sacrifice, enters the world. This 
is the dynamics of Christ's death. 

This, however, is not all of this atonement. 
It is not merely a display of divine love that 
is to influence us by its example to go and do 
likewise. It is not a mere theatric exhibition. 
It also contains within itself such a revelation 
of God as actually purges our sins when His 
Spirit comes in upon us. If it had been only 
an exhibition, it would not have needed the 
system of Judaism to prepare for it. But that 
system, by its types, supplies us with the 
proper full conception of the bearings of this 
great work. 

Let us now take up these various Mosaic 

symbols, and see how they, when taken in 

♦ 

* Phil. iii. 10. See also 2 Cor. iv. 10. 

« 2 Tim. ii. 10. ' Col. i. 24. * Rom. ix. 3. 

178 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

connection with the fundamental idea that 
religion is the personal influence of God, 
make plain the atonement. And first, the 
Lamb type. The slaying of a lamb was a 
prominent feature of Jewish sacrifices, and 
Christ is called '*the Lamb of God.*' It was 
the blood of this lamb that was the essential 
thing. **Without shedding of blood is no 
remission.''^ Blood was sacred. No man 
must eat it; even a stranger eating it must be 
put to death ; it must be poured out unto the 
Lord.^ Why was this? The Jew never knew. 
All that he could understand was that it was 
God*s ordinance. God might have forgiven 
His people (perhaps he thought) some other 
way; but for some unknown reason He pre- 
scribed this way, and without sacrificing life 
none need expect pardon. Now, the death of 
Jesus, the Lamb of God, elevated the old 
sacrificial language into a wonderful luminous 
newness of meaning. He came to fulfill, to 
fill to the full, the law and the prophets. Now 
we see what the Jews never saw. The dying 
Lamb saves because without givin'g life there 
is no saving life. When Jesus by His death 
showed the reality, of which the altar was the 
symbol. He showed it as resembling and yet 
differing from the type. It resembled it be- 
cause His sacrifice was a blood-shedding, a 

* Heb. IX. 22. * Deut. xii. 23. Lev. xvii. 10 14. 

179 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

life-giving; it differed from the type in that 
His sacrifice was a self-sacrifice. The forms 
of both the type and the reality were the same ; 
the spiritual contents were not the same. 

Thus we perceive how it is that the blood 
makes our peace with God. Christ' atones, 
makes God and man "at one/' not because 
He pays the fixed price for sin, but because in 
Him God enters sympathetically into the 
world's struggle. We must not put the hard, 
commercial aspect upon this matter. We 
cannot confine God's majestic workings down 
to our customs of bargain and sale, nor to the 
makeshift something we call justice in our 
courts. Who shall say that sins are charged 
upon the books and Christ's blood credited; 
or that, unless the statutory provision of death 
for sin be carried out, God refuses to be 
pacified? What pitiful logic-machinery this, 
from which to grind out salvation ! The Jew 
saw the spilt blood on the altar, but he knew 
not why it "propitiated" God; he only knew 
it was God's command. But Christ made 
known this mystery that had been hidden 
in all altars through the ages, by showing 
that the shed blood was the sacrificed life of 
the noble, the high, the potent, and the pure 
to save the mean, low, weak, and degraded; 
even, indeed, God Himself suffers in Christ 
for the sake of the men who pierce Him. 

i8o 



I 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

It is the law of life that sinners come to 
sorrow and the upright to peace. Now this 
naturally estranges the two classes. If they 
are to be **at oned," brought into unity again, 
it can only be either in the devil's way of 
giving peace to sinners that they may enjoy it 
with the righteous, or in God*s way of the 
righteous stooping down to take upon them- 
selves the sorrows of sin, thus in helpfulness 
lifting the sinners to a better life. God repre- 
sents all that is holy and pure; mankind's 
story has been black ; the natural tendency 
would therefore be for God and mankind 
steadily to drift apart; the atonement there- 
fore is made when Christ, the God incarnate, 
stoops to take on His own shoulders our 
stripes, to pour out His own blood under sin- 
ful persecutors. 

One great trouble with the church to-day 
is that it fails to seize this spirit of the atone- 
ment. Regarding it in the old, hard, com- 
mercial way as a stipulated price paid for 
sin, the church-member considers, that hav- 
ing accepted this agreement, and having by 
belief and repentance appropriated it, now 
therefore he is entitled to its benefits, a peace- 
ful and happy life. 

This separates him from sinners. They 
must suffer on; he is to live in peace. Thus 
there is a great gulf fixed between them. 

i8i 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

Thus, in a way so subtle and profound that 
they knew it not, the hard, commercial view 
of Christ's atonement was the underlying 
cause of that spirit of segregation which in 
Romanism developed into monasticism and in 
Protestantism was manifested as Puritanism. 
This view of the atonement tended to estrange 
the church from the world; it did not "at 
one'' in social life at all. It did not, and does 
not, break down the "middle wall of partition" 
between the elect and the unregenerated, but 
it strengthened that wall. But the atone- 
ment conceived of as a divine self-giving is 
permeating more and more in these days the 
mind of the church, and in Protestant mis- 
sions to heathen lands, in social reforms, in 
so-called "applied Christianity," and in many 
kindred ways it is reconciling the world and 
the church. 

In fine, we may say that the secret of "the 
blood" is that it signifies the bringing together 
the holy and the sinful by means of the former 
voluntarily participating in the sufferings of 
the latter. Thus the empty, ceremonial 
formula of sacrifice is crowded full of the 
glorious contents of self-sacrifice. For us to 
hold that Jesus' death in some way, by some 
strange law of the divine court-room, removes 
from us the necessity of suffering penalty of 
our sin, is to go back to Judaism; that is pre- 

182 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

cisely all they could see in the death of the 
sacrificial lamb. This is to **fall from 
grace," * to retreat from the light of the Gos- 
pel to ceremonial darkness. But to appre- 
hend that, above and beyond all question of 
penalty, Jesus* death reveals to us a God 
participating in our struggle with and suffer- 
ing by sin; this gives us the inward power tp 
overcome sin, to purge our lives of its hateful 
virus, and to rise by the assistance of the 
ever-present Atoner and Helper into new- 
ness of life. Such is the meaning of the 
Blood. 

But God in Christ fulfilled the Priest type 
as well as the Lamb or Blood type. He was 
at once the revelation of the divine meaning 
of both priesthood and sacrifice. He is not 
our High Priest for the sole reason that He 
'*ever liveth to make intercession** for us. 
Never should we allow the force of an illus- 
tration to carry us away from a fact. The 
fact is that He is very God, the embodied 
representative to us of God ; that He is called 
a ''priest forever** is therefore but a shade of 
meaning of His godly character, which He 

' Gal. V. 4: '* Christ is become of no effect unto you, whoso- 
ever are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. ' Thus we 
see that by " falling trom grace," in Scriptural usage, is not 
meant "backsliding" from grace into the world, but ''backslid- 
ing" from a trug and spiritual conception of Christ's work to a 
Jewish and legal conception of it ; which is exactly what is done 
by the Latin theology. 

183 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

intends to reveal to us.^ As Christ surprised 
the waiting world by disclosing that the shed 
blood which availed was His own blood, the 
lamb of God's choosing was God Himself 
incarnate, so He unfolds to us that God is 
His own priest. In other words, the office of 
the priesthood was made, just as the custom 
of shedding blood was instituted, to prepare 
our minds for a phase of God's character as it 
was to appear in Jesus. Above all things, let 
us think not of Christ as a priest in such 
a way as to make God's nature farther removed 
from us, approachable not directly, but only 
through a mediator, but think of His priestly 
function as drawing God's character closer to 
us, bringing God and man together. 

The essential element of a priest's office is 
that he brings God and man together, and is 
thus called a daysman, mediator, go-between, 
and the like. The atonement gives us the 
priestly view of God's character in Christ in 
that it exhibits Him as thoroughly sharing our 
life. How the priest redeemed the people 
from sin by sprinkling them with blood, or by 
other rites, the Jew never knew; it was a 
locked symbol; he only knew it was God's 
command. If we say that we can only guess 
why God pardons us for His Son's prayers' 

> Heb. vii. 17. In Heb. iii. i, Christ is called "the Apostle 
and High Priest of our profession." He is not literally one, any 
more than He is literally the other. 

184 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

sake, we fall back to the old legal darkness. 
It is not Gospel intelligence to hold that God 
only forgives us '*for Christ's sake'' because 
that is His promise. Reason asks at once 
why God could not simply forgive us directly; 
why this device of a go-between? But when 
we remember that *'God was in Christ," we 
see that the days-man is God Himself. It was 
this method He took of giving humanity cour- 
age to approach Him. And why this method? 
Again we take the idea of religion as God's 
personal influence to make this plain. 

For, as to personal influence, you have 
noticed that association with a very pure, 
noble nature is not attractive to base men. 
By this their own vileness only stands out the 
clearer. The whiteness of the good man 
shows them their own blackness. So it was 
with Peter; when the divinity of our Lord 
burst in on his mind, he fell down, crying, 
** Depart from me, for I am an evil man, O 
Lord!"^ Knowing one to be holy, evil per- 
sons shun him. And this is why, although all 
races have had the idea of God, none of them 
have ever dared conceive of Him as directly 
living within them.^ Knowing themselves 

> Luke V. 8. 

« It was the glorious news of the Gospel, on the contrary, that 
••the kingdom of heaven is within you." Lukexvii.21. The reader 
will note that the marginal reading, in his New Testament, of 
this passage is, "among you," instead of "within you." Meyer, 
the great exegete, translates the word Entos humon (within you), 
thus : " Intra vos, in your circle, in the midst of you." He adds, 

185 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

corrupt, the farther off they could push God 
the better they would feel. Hence they made 
idols, selected priests and days-men, some sort 
of mediator being desired to propitiate this 
flawless Being it troubled them to think on. 
Into this kind of savagery Christianity sank 
in the dark ages, losing the thought of the 
spiritual immanence of God, and putting Him 
afar off, connecting themselves with Him by 
a procession of priests, saints, rites, and the 
Virgin. The ideal of purity and holiness and 
absolute right was in men all the while, but it 
only tormented them. It was as a law, terri- 
fying them; as a God, awful in vengeance. 
Thus it is that God, in any other form than as 
the Christy works by His influence only a con- 
sciousness of sin. Men fled their own exalted 
ideals, in despair of ever attaining them. 
And they knew nothing of God except as One 
willing for them to flee — in fact, probably 
intending Himself to damn them forever from 
Himself because they were so repugnant to 
His nature. And here comes in the priestly 
aspect of God in Christ. For as Christ He 
is just as spotlessly perfect, yet not willing for 
them to flee ; on the contrary, coming to seek 
and save, sympathizing, anxious to help, will- 
that there is no objection, on the score of grammar, to the trans- 
lation "within you, within your souls"; but Jesus is talking to 
Pharisees, and the kingdom was certainly not in ///«>bOuls. See 
Meyer's Commentary, in loc. cit. 

i86 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS . 

ing to pass by sins if they will but try to rise 
from them. Therefore Christ's priestliness 
consists in that He has suffused the idea of 
God's holiness with the idea of sy?npathy. We 
no longer dread this kind of God. "For we 
have not an High Priest which cannot be 
touched with the feeling of our infirmities; 
but was in all points tempted like as we are, 
yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly 
to the throne of grace, that we may obtain 
mercy, and find grace to help in time of 
need."^ 

In Christ was shown that trait in the high- 
est ideal of perfect character that men never 
dreamed of before, that by virtue of being the 
highest it stoops to aid the lowest. By par- 
ticipating in our agony God showed in Christ 
His approachableness, so that we that were 
afar^ aliens and strangers, are made nigh by 
His blood. 

We therefore see how it was necessary to 
the influence of God, if it was to lift the 
world, that He should show Himself to us as 
a Lamb — that is, the incarnation of the spirit 
of self-sacrifice — and also as a Priest — that is, 
disclosing to us the fact that absolute perfec- 
tion of character (that is to say, God) is not 
a spirit of segregation nor of asceticism, but of 
thorough sympathy and helpfulness. With- 

» Heb. iv. 15. 

187 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

out these two notions of the divine character 
it could not influence us as it does. 

We pass now to the third aspect which the 
Scriptures give the atonement — namely, that 
Christ by His death takes away our sins from 
us, His blood cleanses us from sin, we are 
washed in the blood, and the like, the sub- 
stantial thought of all of which sayings is that 
somehow Jesus' death causes us who were 
sinful to be pure. The great difficulty in 
grasping this idea, the reason why many 
minds have refused to accept it, and have 
thought it to seem absurdly illogical and 
smacking of a mediaeval piece of theologic 
machinery, is that the penalty of sin has been 
tacitly understood to be the main, if not the 
only thing removed by the atonement. This 
is a part of the old materialistic thought. 
The chief aim of redemption in that pro- 
gramme being to get man into a place called 
heaven after death, of course the principal 
requirement was to remove the obstacle which 
would prevent his entrance therein. By ac- 
cepting Jesus as one's substitute all objection 
to one's citizenship in this New Jerusalem 
would be overcome. But, on the contrary, 
the penalty is a subsidiary matter, as also is 
the heaven-place after death ; these are fac- 
tors that follow as necessary consequences to 
the real, vital and actual work of redemption, 

i88 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

which consists in transforming a man from a 
beastly creature into a son of God, renewing 
and sublimating his character. If therefore 
our main contention be correct, that the 
regeneration of the life, and not the removal 
of the penalty, is the end sought in salvation, 
it must follow that the death of Jesus must 
do more than pay the price that satisfies the 
divine statutes and counterbalances the debit 
of our transgressions; it must have in it some 
potency that shall actually transform man 
himself. How, then, is this done? 

Sin's seat is in the consciousness. The 
genuine repentance for sin is not the fear of 
its penalty, but the grief for its degrading 
presence. The problem, therefore, is not to 
remove the penalty alone. If that be done 
without taking away sin's presence, it is more 
a curse than a blessing, for in the proper 
order of God present sin ought to feel an 
impending punishment; and a salvation which 
takes away the punishment without purifying 
the heart from that which deserves punish- 
ment would be an immoral salvation, a salva- 
tion indeed by the devil, not by Christ. 

Jesus, therefore, died to remove sin from 
the consciousness of men. He was not mani- 
fested in order to show us how God manages 
affairs in the court-room of the heavenly 
assize, not to complete the body of divine 

189 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

legal lore, not to give coherency to some 
**system of theology'*; but "ye know that He 
was manifested to take away our sins.'* ^ He 
came not to complete the logical syllogism by 
which sinners are to be reckoned non-sin- 
ners; He came that *'He might destroy the 
works of the devil. **^ It is not alone the 
results of a low life He is to save us from; it 
is the low life itself He is to change into a 
higher; results are secondary. The glory of 
His work consists not in that those who be- 
lieve on Him escape the penalty of sin; but, 
better than that, and broadly including that 
and swallowing it up, His glorious work is 
consummated in that ''whosoever abideth in 
Him sinneth not."^ **As many as received 
Him, to them gave He power to become the 
sons of God.'** 

To take away sins, therefore, in any true 
sense, Christ must needs operate upon our 
sinful past, not to minify it by giving us the 
idea that it is not so bad after all ; not to 
evade it by assuring us that its punishment 
has been annulled; but by giving us a new 
consciousness unburdened with the past. One 
cannot escape from himself. He has been 
sinful. As long as he lives he must bear that 
record with him. Only death, or a cessation 



* I John iii. 5. 
« I John iii. 8. 


« I John iii. 6. 
* John i. 12. 




190 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

of consciousness can eliminate it. The only 
way to kill sin is to kill the man. It is 
bone of his bone. Consequently it is just this 
that the Saviour of man does for him. He 
destroys the old consciousness and gives a 
new one. This is the divine miracle in re- 
demption. 

To understand something of this, which is 
not after all so strange as it may seem, take 
a simple analogy. In common speech we 
often say, '*I am a new man." Some impor- 
tant event happens in our life that seems to 
make the past slough off and to cause our life 
to emerge into a new sphere of experience, by 
which we enter into new sensations, views, 
hopes, and convictions, and by which our 
relation to all things seems changed. Crudely 
speaking, some such change occurs when 
after being long sick we regain health; there- 
after our mind is so altered in its fundamental 
operations that we look back upon the morbid 
state in which we were of late as upon the 
state of another man.^ So, also, it is with 
personal influence; when we come to know a 
good and noble man and to be with him, his 
feelings, views, and whole atmosphere are 



* *' Cleomenes, the son of Anaxandridas, being sick, his friends 
reproached him that he had humors and whimsies that were new 
and unaccustomed. * I believe it,' sai' i he, * neither am I the same 
man now as when I am in health; being now another thing, my 
opinions and fancies are also other than they were before.' "—Plu- 
tarch's Apothegms of the Lacedaemonians. 

191 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

subtly absorbed by us, and we are so changed 
into his likeness that we begin to recognize 
his attributes as our own ; we look back upon 
our former life, before we knew him, as upon 
the life of another person. Particularly is 
this the case if we find out after a while some 
heroic and exalted deed our friend has done 
for us, the light of which irradiates over all 
his life and brings him nearer to us. Thus, 
in some such manner, does the personal influ- 
ence of God operate upon us in the atoning 
death and present companionship of Christ. 

Being brought to know God by receiving 
now His Spirit, we become changed ; being 
aware that this Being, whom we know, has 
done so wondrous a deed for us as to suffer and 
die in order to reveal Himself to us, we are 
pricked to the heart and stirred up to new 
nobility. '* Therefore,'* says Paul, '4f any 
man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature; 
old things have passed away; behold, all 
things have become new." ^ Our former life, 
with its sins and all their future penalty of 
alienation from Him, is gone. The coming in 
of the divine Spirit has killed our old self; it 
has perished as a hateful memory, and '*he 
that is dead [and only he] is freed from sin." * 
Henceforth '*for me to live is Christ."^ 

This is the reality of which the purification 

* 2 Cor. V. 17. * Rom. vi. 7. * Phil. i. 21. 

192 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

by blood at the Jewish altar was the symbol. 
The sprinkling of blood, or any other lustra! 
rite, did not actually purge sins away; it only 
illustrated the way in which God would pro- 
ceed in the actuality. The author of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews gives the law of real 
purification: ''Worshipers once purged should 
have no more conscience of sins. But in 
those sacrifices, under the law, there was no 
purging, but a remembrance again made of 
sins every year. But we are sanctified through 
the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once 
for all. ''^ 

Now, when we imagine God merely reckons 
our sins to be no sins by a sort of legal fiction, 
and because of the satisfaction made to His 
sense of justice by the sacrifice of Christ, 
merely calls our sins removed and imputes 
unto us righteousness, we are setting aside 
the present work of the atoning Spirit, we are 
confining the whole matter to a mechanical 
performance, and we are but erecting a new 
system of Judaism, differing not one whit from 
the reasoning process of the old, although we 
put the Christ in the same place that the 
Jews put the lamb. Though we may name 
this system Christianity, it is no different from 
the Mosaic dispensation. It is the same 
arrangement and process, with a new sacri- 

* Heb. X. 2, 3, 10. 

193 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

fice; we simply substitute the divinely chosen 
victim on the altar. But we must remember 
that God did not say He would change merely 
the sacrifice; it was the whole old covenant^ the 
whole arrangement and process, that He 
promised to abolish and to substitute a new one. 
"Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when 
I will make a new covenant with the house of 
Israel; not according to the covenant that I 
made with their fathers; but this is the cove- 
nant I will make after those days, saith the 
Lord ; / will put My laws into their mind and 
write them in their hearts; and they shall all know 
Me^ from the least to the greatest, ' * ^ If this 
means anything at all, it means that the cove- 
nant in Christ signifies a taking away of sins 
not by any sort of ceremony, type, legal fiction, 
or logical process at all, but by a transforma- 
tion of the human soul by the entrance in 
upon it of the divine soul, and the consequent 
alteration of the very consciousness of man 
so that God's laws should be ingrained in the 
mind and heart. 

This important conclusion carries with it 
another and not less important discovery, and 
that is, that sin is taken away by the Lamb of 
God's sacrifice only as we become new crea- 
tures in Christ Jesus. To speak technically, 
regeneration and forgiveness are the same 

* Heb. viii. 8-11. 

194 



I 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

thing. We are forgiven only as we are regen- 
erated. The act of forgiveness is not merely 
"an act of the divine mind," which we can 
know takes place only because God promises 
to forgive when we '*repent and believe''; 
for that kind of an agreement or covenant be- 
tween God and man — that is to say, the kind 
of covenant whereby God agrees to do a cer- 
tain thing provided we do a certain other 
thing; God promises to forgive if we believe 
and repent — is done away with, being the 
temporary, typic, and formal kind of cove- 
nant He made with the Jews. We now have 
*'a new and living way*' of cleansing from 
sin, or forgiving; it is by the present imma- 
nent Christ-God entering the soul of man by 
His Spirit and actually removing the old con- 
sciousness with its sin stains and giving us a 
new life. This is the Gospel; the other is 
Judaism, This is Pauline ; the other is Latin. 
This is the religion of the apostles and the 
religion of to-morrow; the other is the reli- 
gion of the logic-mongers and the religion of 
yesterday. 

Only as we are regenerated are our sins 
removed. The old ordinance with its fictions 
and forms is vanished; the reality is here. 
The difference is exhibited in the common 
misquoting of a certain text of Paul by the 
careless preacher; we have often heard it 

195 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

quoted that *'we are justified freely by His 
grace through Jesus Christ, whom God hath 
set forth to be the propitiation through faith 
in His blood for the remission of sins that 
are past; that He might be just, and the justi- 
fier of the ungodly. ' ' ^ A very crude mistake 
to be sure, for the passage ends thus, '*the 
justifier of him that believeth in Jesus/' And 
yet the very fact that the error is sometimes 
made, and the added fact that it seems, at 
first thought, to mean after all the same thing, 
show how subtly the Latin theology has cor- 
rupted the apostolic idea. For if the atone- 
ment is a mere plan, working without the 
present power of God's personal influence as 
a Spirit, there is nothing wrong with God's 
''justifying the ungodly'*; but the real truth 
is that the ungodly are never justified ex- 
cept as they cease to be ungodly, and they 
are justified when they are in Christ simply 
because they do cease to be ungodly. 

If any man presumes his sins to be gone, 
merely because he has accepted Jesus as his 
substitute, yet not having his nature changed 
by the personal influence of God, he is mis- 
taken. His sins are not gone; their whole 
power and guilt remain upon him. The sac- 
rifice of the Christ-Lamb is of no more virtue 
than that of the Mosaic lamb, when taken apart 

^ Rom. iii. 26. 

196 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

from ** the power of His resurrection** — that 
is, His present actual influence as a Spirit on 
the soul. Unless he be changed, or ''con- 
verted," he is not forgiven; for ''except ye be 
converted, ye cannot see the kingdom of 
God.*' To attempt to draw a distinction be- 
tween the act of forgiveness on God*s part, 
and of conversion on our part, is to put 
asunder what God hath joined together. 

Notice how, in apostolic teaching, the wash- 
ing away of sin is nearly always coupled with 
the creation of a new life. To the apostles' 
minds the new birth is itself the dropping 
away of the old sins, for our old sins only go 
with our old self. This is cleansing by the 
living Lamb who gave His life for us on Cal- 
vary that He might now daily give His life to 
us. Christ fills the old form to overflowing 
with life and power. Peter says Christ bare 
our sins on the tree "that we, being dead to 
sins, should live unto righteousness."^ The 
passing of sin without the entrance of a new 
life is a purely intellectual fancy, and has no 
foundation in fact. "There is, therefore, 
now no condemnation to them which are in 
Christ Jesus," writes Paul, but straightway 
qualifies by adding "who walk not after the 
flesh, but after the Spirit.'*^ We are freed 
"from sin and death," not by a fiction or the 

* I Pet. ii, 24. 2 Rom. viii. i. 

197 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

mere acceptance of a fact, but by "the law of 
the spirit of life'' ; and *'if any man has not 
the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.** ^ 

If all we have to do in order to get rid of 
sins is to accept and believe in the plan as it 
is formally declared, why not go on accepting 
and go on sinning? A great many doubtless 
so live. To them the Christ is but another 
Jewish lamb which merely ''calls to remem- 
brance** their sins and assures them of their 
escape from the penalty ofMJiem. With no 
life such as God*s personal influence creates, 
they consider themselves *'saved,** because 
they accept the creed, acknowledge the syllo- 
gism, and make the oblatory prayer at due 
intervals. Paul had this very kind of people 
to contend with. Precisely the same dead 
Judaistic cast of thought about Christ faced 
him as now faces us. The sixth chapter of 
Romans is extremely timely and up to date. 
"What!** he exclaims, "shall we continue to 
sin because God promises to take them all 
away? God forbid! How shall we, who are 
dead to sin, live any longer therein?**^ Thus 
he does not meet the argument of these mis- 
taken persons, but he repudiates t\i€\x premises y 
rejects their point of view, as much as to say 
that salvation is not so much making sinners 
secure of a future heaven as it is making sin- 

* Rom. viii. ' Rom. vi. 1-2. 

198 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

ners cease to be sinners. He uses another 
illustration: **What! then, shall we sin be- 
cause we are not under the law, but under 
grace? God forbid! Know ye not that when 
ye were sinners ye were sin's servants and 
under sin*s influence; but now, God be 
thanked! ye are under the righteous influence 
of God, freed from sin only as ye become ser- 
vants of righteousness. ' * ^ Still again he turns 
the subject to a third phase, comparing us to 
a woman formerly married to sin, but sin hav- 
ing died, now remarried to righteousness; and 
if she marry another man while the first hus- 
band lives, she is an adulteress, so that one 
claiming to be God's man and still living with 
sin is a spiritual adulteress.^ Thus by these 
three examples, that of the dead come to life, 
that of a servant of one man transferred to 
another, and that of a woman set free by 
death from a husband, he makes clear to any 
one who will see, that the efficacy of Jesus' 
blood avails only those in whom His present 
Spirit works an utter severance of the new 
life from the former life. "• -^ 

The author of Hebrews says that **once 
purged from sin we should have no more con- 
science of sins"^ in us. John echoes this, 
saying that we have confidence toward God 
because **our hearts condemn us not";* and 

* Rom. vi. iS-22 ^ Heb. x. 2. 

* Rom. vii. 1-4. * i John iii. 21. 

199 . 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

Paul, also, *'The Spirit beareth witness with 
our spirit that we are the children of God." ^ 
Thus I do not merely blindly believe God con- 
siders me not a sinner, but I am conscious of 
not being a slave of sin. How this God's 
influence comes upon me and raises me up to 
be another man, transfiguring, as it were, my 
very self, Paul vividly thus sets forth: '*! am 
dead to the law that I might live unto God. 
I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I 
live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the 
life which I now live in the flesh I live by the 
faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and 
gave Himself for me.'* ^ 

This may shed welcome light upon a cer- 
tain dark passage of Scripture that has 
troubled many souls: *'For if we sin willfully 
after that we have received the knowledge of 
the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice 
for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of 
judgment and indignation."^ For not a few 
have considered this to mean that if a truly 
converted man fall into sin he cannot again 
be forgiven, a meaning wholly repugnant to 
the general trend of all Christ's and the apos- 
tles' teaching. But the language of this text 
is significant of its true meaning. It is not 
said there remaineth no moYQ forgiveness^ but 
"no more sacrifice for sins." Now, we have 

' Rom. viii. i6. ' Gal. ii. ig, 20. * Heb. x. 26, 27. 

200 



ul 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

seen that one gets the benefit of Christ's sacri- 
fice only by His changing of him into a new 
man ; therefore one who goes on willfully sin- 
ning, yet claiming the merit of the atonement, 
is reminded that when he ceases to be a new 
creature, at that moment the sacrifice of 
Christ ceases to avail him. He is counting 
on the sacrifice covering his presumptuous 
sins, when '* there remaineth no more sacri- 
fice/' For Jesus* sacrifice is of virtue to us, 
not merely as a part of a plan, but only as it 
changes our natures. 

So, also, is it with the **sin against the 
Holy Ghost'' that will never be forgiven in 
this world nor the next.^ The Holy Spirit 
is God^ is Christy as immanent in the world 
and operative upon us. He alone can cleanse 
us from sin by enduing us with a new life. 
Hence, to sin against Him — that is, to close 
ourselves against His influence — is simply to 
reject the only thing in heaven or earth that 
can deliver us from sin. Thus this dictum 
about the unpardonable sin is reasonable 
when we accept the view of religion set forth 
in this essay. But if Christ atones for all 
sin by His death alone, without the added 
necessity of the personal influence of His 
Spirit on men's life, then it is unreasonable, 
artificial, and statutory, God's influence 

* See Matt, xviii. 22, etc. 

201 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

alone saves men. Of this influence the fact 
of His death in the incarnate Son is a neces- 
sary part, yet that historic death without His 
personal influence directly upon the life is 
valueless. It is only as a Spirit that He 
comes in contact with us to influence us per- 
sonally. Hence it is that whosoever rejects 
t\i2X personal touch rejects the only thing that 
can save him. How can ''the sin against the 
Holy Ghost" be forgiven when forgiveness 
itself means the entrance of that Spirit into 
the life? 

And now we come to see why it is that the 
resurrection is the crowning theme of the 
Gospel, and why without the resurrection 
the atonement means nothing at all to us. 
For it is not the fact that Christ died, but the 
fact that having died^ He now lives to use that 
death, that is our salvation. Unless He apply 
His blood, it is of no merit. We cannot get 
any benefit from His sacrifice except as 
receiving it at the hands of the living, risen, 
present Christ-Spirit. So, therefore, the 
apostles continually couple the death with the 
resurrection. As He died at the hands of sin, 
so let us crucify our old man with his lusts 
and lawlessness, put him to death as one of 
the survivors of the mob that slew our Lord, 
bury him by the similitude of baptism, and 
then let us rise in newness of life, even as the 

202 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

Saviour rose, viewing all our past career as 
an accursed thing; henceforth let us be filled 
with God, having eternal life, sitting in 
heaven. ''Reckon yourselves dead to sin," 
cries Paul, "and alive unto God. They that 
are Christ's have crucified the flesh and its 
evil passions; let us now live and walk in a 
new atmosphere, even God. If the Spirit of 
the rising Jesus dwell in you. He shall also 
make quick and alive your mortal bodies.** ^ 

As our rising from the dead puts on us a 
celestial body, let us, also, risen from the 
death of our old selves, **put on the Lord 
Jesus. "^ He is to be our new garment; the 
old we have cast away. Now, one is not 
conscious of himself, he is conscious of his 
clothes; that is, he thinks of himself not as 
naked but as clothed. Even so we will no 
more consider our own weak personalities, 
but will present ourselves to ourselves as 
endued with God. The old appetencies may 
remain, evil tastes and habits may linger in 
the new creature ; but I will not think of them 
as myself, *'but sin that dwelleth in me,**^ 
yet a sin impotent because of the Slayer of 
sin that rules me. It will take time and 
cultivation to be wholly absorbed into the 
Spirit's image; traces of sin's marks will 

* Rom. vii. 2-13 and viii. 11. ^ Rom. vii. 17. 

« Gal. iii. 27 and Col. iii. 

203 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

remain, evidences also of its power to tempt; 
but Christ is Master; day by day He will de- 
liver me. John alludes to this dual conscious- 
ness: '*If we say we have no sin, we deceive 
ourselves,'*^ he says in one place; and yet in 
another place: "Whosoever is born of God 
doth not commit sin; whoso commits sin is of 
the devil. **^ This is a contradiction, and we 
must remember that the Spirit that inspired 
the Scriptures inspired also its contradictions^ 
and that in the form of two conflicting state- 
ments we often get a truer view of the real 
truth than could be presented in any other 
way. The point with John is that the over- 
mastering consciousness is of myself as a sin- 
less being like the God-Spirit I freely receive, 
but beneath ever remains the sub-conscious- 
ness of myself as a frail and erring man. The 
problem of life is more and more to lose the 
old in the fullness of the new: ''''Now are we 
the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear 
what we shall be, but we know that when He 
shall appear we shall be like Him,'' ^ 

We pass now to consider the atonement as 
not only typified in the old forms as a cleans- 
ing, but as a transfer of our sins over upon 
God. "He bare our sins in His own body on 
the tree.'** The scapegoat bore away into 

' I John i. 8. * I John iii. 2. 

« I John iii. 9. * i Pet. ii. 24. 

204 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

the wilderness the sins of the people.^ But 
God in Christ does not bear our sins just as 
the scapegoat; that was a mere form. The 
goat did not really bear away the transgres- 
sions of the people, and they knew it to be 
only a shadow. But Christ bears our sins like 
the scapegoat in form, but unlike it because 
He does really take them on Himself. And 
only by keeping in mind that all Christ's life 
and death are explainable only by His still 
being present as an immanent Spirit can we 
understand the substance of which the old 
ceremony was a picture. We are not to 
understand Jesus' bearing our sins upon the 
cross as a fact, but as the introduction to a 
fact. We were not living then, and how could 
He bear our sins when as yet we were not 
born? Hence we see that this bearing of the 
evil consequences of the sins of those human 
beings in that age in which He lived in the 
body is to show us that He now and forever, 
*'once for all," bears the sins of all men who 
will come to know Him as the immanent 
Spirit. What is it to bear sin? Evidently to 
take upon Himself the effect of sin. Now, 
that effect is its pernicious, ruinous influence 
upon our character, and He now as a helpful 
Spirit actually removes from us these effects. 
He does this by virtue of having suffered and 

* Lev, xvi. 8-10. 

205 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

died. As we see Him enduring all that sin 
can do to harm, we receive the idea of His 
sympathy and help in us. The struggles and 
temptations of sin, therefore, coming to us 
are met and swallowed up by the influence 
within us of this Man who "was tempted in 
all points like as we are/*^ Knowing Him, 
we walk daily with One who feels all our 
trials, equipped by His experience in the flesh 
to be the **Captain of our salvation.** ^ Com- 
ing thus to Him in every hour of need, pour- 
ing all our woes into His ear, "casting all our 
cares upon Him who careth for us,** ^ fighting 
no more against sin, but simply passing the 
conflict over to Him, we know that He did 
not merely once bear the penalty of our evil, 
but that He does now continually bear all our 
present evils. "Surely He hath borne our 
griefs and carried our sorrows. He was 
wounded for our transgressions. He was 
bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of 
our peace was upon Him, and with His 
stripes we are healed.*** 

Again, there is another phase of the atone- 
ment presented by the apostles. Jesus is said 
to be our Redeemer, by His blood to have 
bought us. Paul declares we are not our own 
but we are bought with a price ; ^ Peter, that 

* Heb. iv. 15, * Isa. liii. 

« Heb. ii. 10. • i Cor. vi. 20. 



» I Pet. V. 7. 



206 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

we were not purchased by silver and gold and 
such corruptible things, but by the priceless 
blood of Christ.^ What is the meaning of 
this? Let us see. To buy a thing is to 
acquire ownership of it; thereafter we have a 
claim upon it as ours. Now, it is of course 
impossible to own a sentient spirit, endowed 
with a free will, as one would own a horse. 
How do you own your friend or lover or wife? 
Only in so far as you have claims upon them, 
claims of affection and loyalty. The Bible 
frequently uses the analogy of wife and hus- 
band to show the relation between God and 
His people.^ Now, what sort of a price can 
a man pay for a true wife? There is but one 
price — love. This is the price God pays for 
us. It is said to be paid by Jesus' blood be- 
cause God's pouring out His life in Christ's 
death was the profoundest and most moving 
spectacle and declaration of love; ''greater 
love hath no man than this. "^ So great a 
love, manifested so feelingly, at once estab- 
lishes an imperial claim upon us. Akin to 
Him by nature, we are proper subjects of His 
love; there is nothing contrary to nature in 
our union. Unworthy of Him by nature, we 
make His display of affection the more illus- 
trious. That God, who as Christ commended 
His love to us by dying, yet lives not far from 

* I Pet. i. 19. • Jer. iii. 14, etc. * John xv. 13. 

207 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

any one of us, if haply we may feel for Him 
and find Him. His claim upon us is only a 
claim of love; He puts by His other claims. 
To the ownership of love there is but one 
crime, it is neglect and coldness; there is 
but one requital, it is to love in return. To 
grovel before Him as subjects before an Ori- 
ental monarch, to pay Him only outward, 
formal obeisance by church rites and rever- 
ence, to crucify ourselves in a desperate 
struggle to keep His laws, all without letting 
Him into our hearts, and to suppose that by 
these means we acknowledge His claim — this 
is to wound and pain Him. For what does 
love require but love again? And what does 
a yearning Father ask but affectionate trust? 
And of what value to such a Father are all 
moralities, reverences, and ceremonies except 
as indications of an inward joy in Him and a 
desire to please Him we love? Therefore, 
we conclude that Jesus did not buy us in the 
sense of one of the persons of the Trinity pay- 
ing a blood price demanded by another person 
of the Trinity, but in this sense, that God was 
in Christ purchasing the love and confidence, 
the gratitude and trust of all humanity by 
revealing Himself as One altogether lovely, 
self-giving and beneficent. 

We thus perceive that when we apprehend 
the atonement as the equipment of God's per- 

208 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

sonality so to present Himself to men as to 
save them, we have such a view of this great 
doctrine as reconciles all that is anywhere 
said of it in the Scriptures. Our God is no 
more a far-off, dreaded Deity. He is a self- 
sacrificing God, in Christ as the Lamb pouring 
out His blood and life for us; He is a priestly 
God, in Christ coming close to us that we may 
see His anxious face and feel His throbbing 
heart; He removes our sins, by the entrance 
of the Christ-Spirit into us, giving us a new 
consciousness of ourselves ; He bears our sins, 
being as an immanent Christ-Spirit ever pres- 
ent to hear, to help, to uphold, and to 
strengthen, **with every temptation to provide 
a way of escape,"^ with His grace to be all- 
sufficient for us in every trial; He is our 
Owner, not as one owns slaves and chattels, 
but our owner by the right and title of a 
matchless love that awakens a loyal response 
in every true man. 

An objection that may be argued against 
this view of the atonement is that, after all, 
it makes Christ's death essentially theatrical ; 
that is, it makes Him to die, not because 
He must pay the penalty of men's sins, but 
merely to show or to illustrate the character 
of God. But this objection probably arises 
from confusion of thought due to the strong 



* I Cor. X. 13. 



209 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 



bias which the priestly terminology gives to 
the Lamb of God's sacrifice. Reduced to its 
simplest terms the objection amounts to this: 
if Christ's death did not satisfy divine justice, 
then He had no good reason to die. But it 
must not be forgotten that according to this 
personal influence theory, Jesus' death did 
exalt divine justice, and did it in the only 
way the inflexible law of sin's punishment can 
best be emphasized — that is, by the voluntary 
submission of the innocent to the conse- 
quences of sin. His death did pay our price, 
not the price needed to placate the resent- 
ment of Deity, to be sure, but the price of 
love which alone can purchase hearts. His 
death did provide us a substitute, not a sub- 
stitute on Calvary alone, by which all sinners 
escape their penalty, but a continual, living 
substitute, also, for all men everywhere who 
will use Him. His death was absolutely neces- 
sary, not because Deity must be appeased, 
but because Deity must^ in the fullness of 
time, thus disclose His true self to mankind. 
Those terms which seem to imply the uni- 
versal salvation of all men, good and bad, are 
simply inexplicable by the Latin theology. 
Christ is said to be **the propitiation not of 
our sins only, but also for the sins of the 
whole world. "^ Now, if all that was needed 

* I John ii. 2. 

2IO 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

was to provide men a substitute in the divine 
court-room, why cannot all sinners as well as 
saints be saved? This sort of universalism 
was the legitimate offspring of the old the- 
ology. The only way to avoid it was to hold 
that God had foreordained certain elect souls 
for salvation and the rest for reprobation, or 
else to hold that while the merits of the atone- 
ment plan are indeed universal, yet it is so 
only to those persons who accept the stipula- 
tions that accompany it; both of which the- 
ories have powerfully dominated portions of 
the church. But how much more simple and 
Scriptural is the theory herein advanced — 
namely, that, as a scheme^ Christ's death is of 
no avail at all to any one, but when the pres- 
ent, immanent Christ, as a Spirit, exercises 
His personal influence upon the life of any 
man, that influence saves him because of its 
character as shown forth in Christ's death. 
In other words, the crucifixion, as was said 
before, is but a part of the atonement; as a 
whole, the atonement includes Jesus* life, 
death, and present personal influence. 

At last we see how it is *'in Christ," or 
**for Christ's sake," that He forgives. To 
the Jew of old the sacrifice of the lamb stood 
for God's forgiveness only because the law of 
God so stated; he could only guess at the 
intent of the ordinance. Let us not, then, 

211 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

be mere ancient Jews, believing that God for 
some reason pardons us because of the per- 
fect Lamb's death, but let us grasp Xht purpose 
of the death, the blessed argument it con- 
tains, as thus set forth by Paul: '*He that 
spared not His own Son [spared not Himself], 
but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He 
not with Him also freely give us all things?"* 
Truly, in this act '*God commendeth His love 
to us/' We do not believe He forgives us 
simply because He promised to, and we are 
not simply ''resting on the promises"; but 
because, if He is the kind of person who on the 
cross cried out, "Father, forgive them; they 
know not what they do," then that kind of a 
God would certainly receive and welcome a 
penitent sinner. 

The value of the atonement, therefore, is 
the revelation of the character of God and of His 
disposition toward men. No longer must He 
be supposed a far-removed Conservator of 
the world, a distant Deity dwelling in unap- 
proachable light; but He bends. He comes 
near, He enters into our affairs, incorporates 
His personality into our flesh and blood. Our 
great struggles with sin and circumstance. 
He is not indifferent to them. He makes 
them his own. Into the thick of men sighing 
for deliverance he plunges, and Himself 

* Rom. viii. 32. 

212 



THE LIGHT FROM THE CROSS 

assists them "with groanings that cannot be 
uttered/* Their battle is His battle; their 
hope His hope. He will expose the black- 
ness of sin as it was never seen before. The 
horrors of distorted human passions, He goes 
to meet. He is dragged from prison to court, 
smitten, beaten, spit upon. He gave His 
back to the smiter and His cheek to them 
that pluck out the beard. Smirched, be- 
grimed with filthy hands, with welts on His 
back where the scourge fell, His face red and 
His eyes near blinded by the blood trickling 
from the mock crown. He stumbles on out of 
the gate, an accursed Being, at last to be 
raised in a triumph of all that is devilish and 
malignant upon a racking cross, to die with a 
shriek of utter torture wrung from His dry 
lips when burst His mighty heart. Well 
might Isaiah, as this scene passes before his 
prophetic eye, exclaim: 

"And it shall be said in that day: 
Lo^ this is our God: 

We have waited for Him, and He will save us. 
For He said, Surely they are My people, 
My children; 
So He was their Saviour. 
In all their affliction He was afflicted; 
In His love and in His pity He redeemed them; 
And He bare them, and carried them. 
Doubtless Thou art our Father, 
Though Abraham be ignorant of us and Israel ac- 
knowledge us not; 
Thou, O Lard, art our Father, our Redeemer: 
Thy name is from everlasting." ^ 

* Isa. XXV. 9. 

213 



SUGGESTIONS 

The atonement is not a syllogism, as the old the- 
ology made it; nor a theatric example^ as the new 
theology makes it; but it is a revelation^ as the future 
theology will make it. 

The value of the atonement is that it characterizes 
God. 

God gave His revelation in Oriental imagery, not 
in Latin dogma. 

It is the subtle tincture of Arianism that has de- 
formed the atonement. 

The force in salvation is self-giving. 

In Christ's sufferings the idea of God's holiness is 
suffused with sympathy. 

God is His own sacrificial Lamb and His own 
Priest. 

Men always believed in perfect holiness, but, until 
Christ, they never thought it could stoop to help the 
lowest. 

God is not a spirit of segregation but of assimila- 
tion. 

The passing of sin without the entrance of God is 
purely an intellectual fiction. 

Forgiveness is also subjective. 

The new consciousness is the basis of the new con- 
fidence. 

The sin against the Holy Ghost is fatal, because it is 
the sin against the only form in which God touches us. 

The law showed God's height; the cross, His depth; 
the resurrection, His breadth; these are the three di- 
mensions. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE BALANCE OF DOCTRINE 

To View Religion as God's Personal Influence Gives 
Coherency to Conflicting Doctrines, to Contra- 
dictory Passages of Scripture, and to Opposing 
Elements in Human Nature 



" Health is the vital principle of bliss." — Thomson, 
Castle of Indolence y c. ii., s. $5. 

" Morality, when vigorously alive, sees farther than 
intellect, and provides unconsciously for intellectual 
difficulties." — Froude, Dims Ccesar, 

"While adverse criticism has from age to age gone 
on destroying particular theological dogmas, it has 
not destroyed the fundamental conception underlying 
these dogmas. It leaves us without any solution of 
the striking circumstance, that when, from the absurd- 
ities and corruptions accumulated around them, na- 
tional creeds have fallen into general discredit, ending 
in indifferentism or positive denial, there has always 
arisen by and by a reassertion of them; if not the 
same in form, still the same in essence. Thus the 
universality of religious ideas, their independent evo- 
lution among various primitive races, and their great 
vitality, unite in showing that their source must be 
deep-seated instead of superficial.'* — Spencer, First 
Principles^ p. 11. 



CHAPTER VIII 

There has been a tedious war waged over 
the matter of dogma. For a long time in the 
history of Christianity it was thought to be 
the chief, if not the essential, thing in religion, 
and the church exercised all her authority and 
arrayed all her learning and zeal to the end 
that the people might know what doctrines 
contained the truth and what were false. 
Then came the reaction. At present we are 
swinging to the other extreme, and it is the 
fashion to say that a right creed is not, after 
all, the most vital element in religion. The 
more accurate thinkers have perceived that, 
while correct dogma is not so all-availing as it 
was once held to be, yet the form of our belief 
has a certain necessary relation to our char- 
acter and conduct. "As a man thinketh, so 
is he.'' 

Many have been puzzled to understand how, 
if we admit right creed to be essential, we can 
escape going on to the full logical conclusion 
that dogma should be the prime concern of 
religious institutions charged with the propa- 
gation of Christ's teaching. The unloosing 

217 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

of this mystery is accomplished by the the- 
ory here presented, that religion is the per- 
sonal influence of God. It is the dimly 
growing consciousness of this truth that has 
led us away from emphasizing dogmatic 
instruction. It is the conviction of this 
truth, now in the air of our modern spiritual 
life, that relieves the stern prominence of the 
credal tests of former times. We feel that 
while truth is absolutely necessary, yet some- 
how dogma is not all truth ; but we have not 
yet formulated a statement of what is truth. 
There must be some qualification to the state- 
ment that belief is fatal ; but we have failed 
to set forth distinctly what that qualification 
is. There must, then, be given some the- 
orem concerning dogma, which shall limit its 
iron essentiality, at the same time conserving 
its utility. Such a theorem is this: 

That doctrines of religion are true only in 
so far as they are indications of the character 
and work of the personality of God. 

Doctrines are finite enclosures of thought. 
A personality is an abysmal thing. A doc- 
trine, therefore, may be true, but can be but 
partly true; because no finite definition can 
include an infinite object. There abides in 
every true doctrine something that is not true 
at all. What that untrue part is, can be de- 
termined only by the test of the personality. 

218 



THE BALANCE OF DOCTRINE 

A system of religion, consequently, that is 
based upon certain dogmatic statements must 
always contain much that is erroneous. It is 
only a faith that is founded upon a person- 
ality that can be forever true ; for it will have 
within itself the touchstone by which the truth 
can ever be distinguished from error in any 
credal statement; it will have a constant 
power to modify and remodify, to alter and 
adapt its creed to its growing apprehension 
of the true nature of the personality upon 
which the faith hangs; and it will be able to 
do this without stultifying itself, it will be 
able confidently to repose in a statement of 
truth, even knowing that statement to be 
partly untrue, because it feels that, with a 
fuller knowledge of the divine Person, the 
untrue will be corrected and the true estab- 
lished. 

Such is the real nature of the Christian reli- 
gion. It is centered upon God*s personality; 
and yet it is rich in helpful doctrines, those 
doctrines not being considered the ultimate 
deposits of truth, but as marks by which the 
intellect approaches toward and apprehends 
the main and actual truth, which is God's 
person alone. 

If we now will apply the test of personality 
to some of the old theological controversies, 
we will find that it strangely and lucidly 

219 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

resolves the difficulties, and mightily comforts 
the intellect in its effort to grasp religious 
thought. ** Truth," said a certain popular 
lecturer, *'is clean cut." There never was a 
greater mistake. Lies and half-truths are 
clean cut; but in truth is always a fading 
point of mystery, a dim and shadowy perspec- 
tive of infinitude. For there is but one abso- 
lute truth: God, who is infinite; and any 
clearly defined fragmental fact that seems 
true is only true when taken in connection 
with all the rest of the body of truth. In 
other words, there are no fragmental truths; 
there is but The Truth. The bearings and 
relations and interdependencies of each 
separate truth are as much a part of it as the 
stated and visible part. The little grain of 
sand you may hold on your finger-nail has 
threads of relation running out to the remot- 
est star; it is bound by gravitation and other 
influences to all nature; and hence you can- 
not say you really know that sand grain until 
you know the vast All of the universe. 

Let us, then, apply God*s personality to a 
few mooted doctrinal contradictions, and we 
will see: 

That the personality of God is the balance of 
doctrine. 

For instance, God is just. That is true. 
; Yet it is but a portion of truth. Carry it to 

220 



THE BALANCE OF DOCTRINE 

the extreme length of the abstract idea of jus- 
tice, leaving behind you the person of the 
One who is just, and you need not travel far 
till you find your truth a falsehood. For the 
abstract quality of justness has no room for 
mercy or forgiveness. It was this that forced 
the logic of Latin theology into the construc- 
tion of the ''substitutional'* or "govern- 
mental" theories of redemption. The the- 
ological logicians could not see how absolute 
justice could forgive, and // cannot forgive; 
therefore they substituted Christ in the sin- 
ner's place and had that justice vent itself 
upon Him. Justice, having now fully ex- 
hausted itself upon Jesus, Mercy was free to 
come in and pardon the guilty. There is no 
trouble with the logic of this reasoning; the 
error is in the premises. For God is not Jus- 
tice. He is just. The human, finite idea of 
justice is not broad enough to cover His per- 
son. There is a vast difference between our 
having to do with Justice on the one hand, or 
with a just Father on the other. •—- 

Take, on the contrary, the statement that 
God is merciful. Grasping this thought, and 
taking it away from God's personality, many 
have concluded that God will not punish any 
one, that the atonement is unnecessary, and 
that all, saint and sinner, repentant and 
repenting, alike, will be freely forgiven 

221 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

and made happy. Here is precisely the same 
kind of error, leading to a directly opposite 
result. Both are wrong. The justice of God 
is not entirely a truth by itself, neither is His 
mercy; both are true only where they shade 
into, coalesce with, and eventually modify 
each the other. In short, all antipodal doc- 
trines about God must be balanced by His 
personality. 

So of foreknowledge and free-will. Fore- 
knowledge is certainly true, but unless it be 
always qualified by what we know of free-will 
it is not true. Led to its logical conclusion 
the fore-knowledge of God, as an abstract 
idea, plunges us inevitably into fatalism and 
irresponsibility, rendering us automata. In 
the same way abstract free-will of man un- 
modified will end in atheism. Therefore, we 
are ever to keep in mind that these are mere 
indications or phenomena of the two great infi- 
nite persons^ God and man. The vanishing 
point of every dogma is personality. What 
that is we can never fully know, any more 
than the scientist can ever know what is life 
or force. The great fixed, unalterable fact 
of religion, absolutely indisputable, is that 
God's personality influences man's person- 
ality. All other dogmas concerning God or 
His works are tentative, to be held only as 
they harmonize with this dominant truth. 

222 



THE BALANCE OF DOCTRINE 

If it be objected that this theory is indis- 
tinct and not "clean cut," it may be answered 
that for that very reason it is more liable to be 
true. For a theory that does not frankly 
recognize the abyss of unknowable truth about 
religion is ipso facto false. A theological 
system that reduces God's nature and work 
to a series of propositions, said to be true 
absolutely, and not only in connection with 
His personal mystery, is theologic material- 
ism. And intellectually considered, the old 
theology was materialistic. The same fault 
lay in it that now lies in the modern scientific 
dogmatism. The old theology pinned its faith 
to certain authoritative statements of fact; it 
refused to assent to new facts, not because 
they were opposed to God as we see Him in 
nature and revelation, but because they were 
prejudicial to their statements. Some of our 
present-day scientists are making the same 
mistake; they have discovered certain facts 
in nature and educed from them certain laws; 
and, although they themselves do not pre- 
tend to have discovered all the facts and laws 
of nature, they reject religious facts, not 
because they are not fully substantiated, nor 
because they do not agree with established 
data of personal phenomena, but because they 
cannot reconcile them to their set of facts. 
How much better would both scientific dog- 

223 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

matist and theologic dogmatist recognize that 
*'vast sea of nescience upon which all science 
floats as a mere superficial film!'' How much 
better would we all cling to the deep truth of 
nature and of God, accepting as fragmentary 
whatever facts we can discover, and rever- 
ently modifying all our little store of truth as 
new truth comes down upon us! 

The personality of God is also the balance of 
Scripture, It is the only safeguard against 
the abnormalities of literalism. The Bible is 
indeed inspired; but it is not a collection of 
Medo-Persian decrees, it is not a bundle of 
separate verses, each completely, wholly, and 
unqualifiedly true. The Bible is not the 
truth ; the truth is in the Bible. We are to 
use the Scriptures as an aid to discover God 
and to learn His ways. The great Book is 
our instructor and adviser, but it is of no use 
to us whatever except as it brings us in touch 
with the Person whose revelation it is. Every 
part of it, therefore, is to be modified by 
every other part. No verse is true out of the 
Book. The whole Book itself is true. 

It would seem that the authors of Holy 
Writ were careful to compose their writings 
so that literalism would be an impossibility, 
and that common sense would forever prohibit 
our magnifying a particle of Scripture into an 
essential thing. For their favorite method is 

224 



THE BALANCE OF DOCTRINE 

paradox. They abound in contradictions. 
They continually throw the inquiring mind 
back upon the idea that character^ before con- 
duct, is the result they seek, that it is God, 
and not a set of regulations, they are unfold- 
ing. Take for instance that most important 
of all inquiries, *'What shall I do to be 
saved?" Notice how Jesus answers this 
question as it comes to Him in various guises. 
He has no one essential deed for all. He 
does not tell each to go to Mecca, or to do 
this, or to do that one chief saving deed. He 
has a different word each time, and answers 
no two alike. To Nicodemus He says that 
one must be born again ; to the rich young 
man He counsels selling all and giving the 
money to the poor; in the parable of the last 
judgment He lays all His stress on charitable- 
ness; to the disciples He enjoins watchful- 
ness; speaking of prayer He makes our for- 
giveness to turn upon the forgiving of our own 
enemies; at another time He says that **he 
that believeth shall be saved"; and of the 
woman who anointed Him He apparently 
accepts the deed as sufficient merely because 
she *'did what she could." One who is look- 
ing to see what may be the saving deed, it 
seems to me, must retire from this array of 
conflicting advice utterly baffled. But com- 
mon sense rejoices in its reasonable conclu- 

225 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

sion that what is essential is not any one deed 
at all, but a state of the character from which 
all these various deeds naturally spring. Two 
things are in all of these cases cited : on the 
one hand is the **Me*' of the Christ-God, and 
on the other hand is the **me** of the man's 
personality. Viewing Scripture, therefore, as 
the revelation of that personality of God 
which contains in itself the harmonizing and 
adjusting element of all contradictions, given 
to bring the influence of that divine person- 
ality to bear on us, we see the whole Book 
balanced and made comprehensible. 

The personality of God is also the balance 
of character — that is, it is only when we con- 
ceive religion to be a looking away from self 
and toward the Christ, that our nature devel- 
ops normally. When we take religion to be 
merely a rule of life, a collection of maxims, 
to which we are to conform ourselves, we 
invariably grow one-sided. The religion of a 
personality is wholesome, the religion of a 
creed is morbid. The one makes sound 
growth and health, the other sickness and 
extravagant vagaries. Introspection is dan- 
gerous. The habit of using the Bible as a 
model and striving to shape our lives to its 
teachings, without seeking therein the spirit 
of the Book, is inimical to Christian man- 
hood. For it is God's personal influence, not 

226 



THE BALANCE OF DOCTRINE 

certain facts and rules, that is to mold us into 
perfection. And the Scriptures are to be 
used to enable us to bring ourselves under 
the full play of this divine Spirit. 

This statement of the matter is founded in 
the known law of growth. Growth is essen- 
tially unconscious. *'Consider the lilies, how 
they grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin. ' ' 
There is no effort on the part of a plant to 
increase; it has simply to present itself to the 
agencies of nature, to wave its branches in 
the air and let its roots into the soil, and 
'''God giveth the increase.** Even so the 
Christian is to use Holy Writ, and all other 
good words and advice, as helps to till the soil 
and clear away the weeds, remembering that 
it is the divine source of life that is to uplift 
and ennoble him. 

So all virtue is, in its best form, uncon- 
scious. The charm of the child lies in the 
fact that it does not realize its charm ; and 
as soon as a little one comes to feel its cun- 
ningness, it becomes affected and no longer 
agreeable. The evasive touch of perfect 
beauty upon a lovely face is the unconscious- 
ness of beauty. Egotism defiles the splendor 
of intellectual power. Ostentation spoils 
benevolence. **Let not thy left hand know 
what thy right hand doeth. ** Pride is merely 
self-respect degraded by self-consciousness. 

227 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

The grace of manners is self-forgetfulness; 
without this quality courtesy is affectation. 
Prudery is self-opinionated chastity. There- 
fore, the fly in the ointment of any virtue is 
self. Now, understanding that it is only as 
we look away from self to God, only as we 
think of Him, only as we lift our hearts to 
Him in love, only as we receive upon our- 
selves the reflexive increment of holiness by 
turning to Him, we are saved from this bane 
of morbidness. 

The mediaeval monk prayed to God, but he 
studied himself. The anchorite watched his 
soul to see it grow, and chastened it with 
bodily mortification, dying at last in despair. 
The Puritan gloried in austerity, and the more 
his self-scrutiny grew, the darker became his 
heart and the more rigid his practices. The 
modern sanctificationist speaks ever of his 
own soul-states. And in all these we recog- 
nize something sickly and unnatural. The 
cause of it is, that God's Book, God's pre- 
cepts, or our own experiences, when they 
become the object of supreme attention, nar- 
row and dwarf the soul, for they were never 
meant to hide Him from us, but to reveal Him 
to us. But God Himself, in Christ, the more 
He is sought after, rejoiced in, and walked 
with, forgetting self, changes us from lower 
ever to higher righteousness. 

228 



THE BALANCE OF DOCTRINE 

Nothing can take the place of God's own 
person to us. The worship of anything else 
is idolatry, whether that adoration be of 
beasts or men or of a Book or a law He has 
made. But beast, man. Book, and law may 
help us if through them we find Him. The 
doctrine that can save religion from being 
abnormal, gloomy, wretched, and despairing, 
is that God Himself, in the person of the 
Christ-Spirit is now immanent among men, 
and does transform and ennoble all who receive 
Him, all who look not at any created thing, 
but at the Creator alone. His personal influ- 
ence is the wholesomeness of faith. **Hope 
thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him who is 
the health of my countenance.'* 

The same irenic influence is exerted by the 
theory that religion is the play of God's per- 
sonality upon men, on the age-long dispute 
between the champions of original sin or 
total depravity, and the advocates of natural 
goodness. The former take their stand upon 
those emphatic statements of Scripture which 
declare that there is no good thing in us, that 
we are altogether gone astray, that the natural 
man cannot please God, and the like. These 
declarations unquestionably intimate that 
man, of himself, is wholly incapable of any 
such reformation as shall make him a true 
son of God. Opposed to this, the other side 

229 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

says that unless there is something improvable 
in us, something which responds to the divine 
appeal, it is impossible for us to take hold of 
religion at all. Viewed merely as abstract 
theories, both of these positions are perfectly 
true, yet are they perfectly irreconcilable. To 
obviate the difficulty of an utterly depraved 
man being of course incapable of admitting 
the power of the Gospel to save him, there 
has been suggested what is called "prevent- 
ing grace'* — that is, that a certain portion of 
divine goodness, independent of and outside 
of the Gospel, abides in every man, not very 
much grace, only enough to make him desire 
to turn and receive the Gospel, enough to 
make him conscious that he is a sinner. But 
how much more simple and rational is the 
explanation of the whole matter upon the the- 
ory that it is the personality of the immanent 
God-Spirit that saves men. This balances 
the conflicting views and gives room for both 
in one conception. Man is wholly helpless 
to become like God; in himself is no spon- 
taneous regenerative power. The only force 
that can change him is the influence of God. 
That influence is in all the world; it operates 
everywhere, in heathendom or in Christen- 
dom, in proportion as it is perceived and sub- 
mitted to by men. Among pagans it works 
weakly, because obscured and clouded by 

230 



THE BALANCE OF DOCTRINE 

misconceptions and falsehood. Among peo- 
ple in Christian lands it is effectual as it is 
clearly apprehended and yielded to in a 
greater or less degree. In the true, full 
preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ it is 
brought to bear in the fullest, truest way, 
and therefore this Gospel is "the power of 
God unto salvation." What we call natural 
goodness is the more or less feeble radiation 
of that influence upon men, the penumbra of 
Jesus Christ. Hence, when the full Gospel 
of Christ is addressed to men, it is the con- 
tinuation of the same power that has already 
been working within them as what they called 
*' natural goodness." There are, therefore, 
not two kinds of goodness, natural and super- 
natural ; it is all one, and all of God. He is 
'*the Light that lighteth every man that 
Cometh into the world," but in Jesus Christ 
He is the very "Sun of righteousness." 

A religion that is the revelation of the AU- 
Father*s personality and His influence is 
equipped to be a missionary power. It goes 
to heathen peoples, not as another cult, but 
as the true solution of all they have had that 
is best. It recognizes their longings and reli- 
gious systems as so many indications of the 
divine person's influence among them, ob- 
scured, degraded, and confused by error. It 
comes to them, using as a text their own 

231 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

ancient faiths, saying that ''God who at sun- 
dry times and in divers manners spake in 
times past'* to them, ''hath in these last days 
spoken by His Son," "the brightness of His 
glory, and the express image of His person/* 
It comes to them, as did Paul to the Atheni- 
ans, proclaiming, "Whom, therefore, ye 
ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you." 

Hence, we conclude that if the power of the 
Gospel abides only in the doctrines of the 
Bible, then all the "outside saints" of ante- 
Christian ages and of present extra-Christian 
faiths have no connection at all with salva- 
tion ; Job and Abraham, as well as the pious, 
sincere Brahman or Mahometan of this day, 
are equally aliens from the kingdom; but if 
the Gospel is the complete unfolding of God's 
personal influence, which in a measure always 
and everywhere has been at work among men, 
then the ancient patriarch was also under the 
power of the Redeemer of men, and to the 
earnest heathen we can say, in encouragement 
and joy, as a Gospel which is a "good news" 
indeed, "One thing thou lackest — follow 
Christ; receive ye the Holy Spirit, and He 
shall lead you into all truth." 

It thus would seem that the doctrine here 
defended gives an intellectual coherency and 
symmetry to the entire Gospel plan. 



232 



SUGGESTIONS 

Every dogmatic truth contains a falsehood. 

There is no religious truth but personal truth. 

All science is to be modified by nescience. 

Religious doctrines are true as revelations, but not 
as definitions. 

No finite definition can include an infinite object; 
it must be indicatory, not exhaustive. 

A system of religion founded upon a Person can 
grow; if founded upon doctrine it will die. 

Christian doctrines are milestones of Christian 
progress. 

No dogma is true without perspective; it must rec- 
ognize the unknowable. 

The relations of a fact are as much a part of it as 
is the stated and visible part. 

The personality of God is the balance of doctrine. 

There is a vast difference between Justice and a 
just God. 

Every thesis has its antithesis; each is true only 
where it overlaps the other. 

A religion of dogma, intellectually speaking, is 
materialistic. 

No text of the Bible is true out of the Bible 

The contradictions of Scripture are the safeguards 
of common sense. 

All growth is unconscious in its operation. 

The world is in the penumbra of Christ. 

The personal influence of God is the strength of 
missions. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE INCARNATION 

The Personal Influence of God is Transforming the 
World as a Power of Social Evolution, not as a 
Rule of Social Segregation 



" Conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin 

Mdixy r^The Apostles' Creed. 

" Divine Wisdom, to establish the salvation of man- 
kind, and to conduct His glorious victory over death 
and sin, would do it no other way, but at the mercy of 
our ordinary forms of justice, subjecting the progress 
and issue of so high and so salutiferous effect to the 
blindness and injustice of our customs and observ- 
ances; sacrificing the innocent blood of so many of 
His elect, and so long a loss of so many years, to the 
maturing of this inestimable fruit." — Montaigne, 
Essays y Vol. I., p. 109. 

" For still the new transcends the old 
In signs and tokens manifold; 
Slaves rise up men; the olive waves 
With roots deep set in battle graves." 
John G. Whittier, The Chapel of the Hermits. 

"And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: 
see that ye be not troubled; for all these things must 
come to pass, but the end is not yet." 

"Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good 
pleasure to give you the kingdom." — Jesus, Matt, 
xxiv. 6; Luke xii. 32. 



CHAPTER IX 

There are many persons who may hesitate 
to believe that Christianity is the personal 
influence of God, because it appears to them 
that if it were so religion would have been 
always pure, while as a matter of fact it has 
been and is now very faulty. And not only 
so, but so-called Christianity has been directly 
responsible for some of the greatest crimes of 
history. Not alone imperfect has it shown 
itself, but positively devilish at times. Now, 
the way to meet this statement is not to deny 
it, for it is true. Some time ago the writer 
listened to a brilliant infidel lecturer as he 
brought against the church, in a series of 
telling climaxes, a railing accusation, charg- 
ing it with impeding progress and with injur- 
ing humanity in a hundred ways. What he 
charged was every whit true; its falsity lay 
not in his misstatement of facts, but in his 
wrong point of view. And that point of view 
unfortunately was not his own, but was fur- 
nished him by the theologians, and is shared 
by most of those who profess Christianity. 
He was proceeding upon the assumption that 

237 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

it was the design of this religion to establish 

a church, saving a certain elect number out 

of the world. This is another phase of the 

; old misconception of salvation as a scheme 

instead of a power; it shows how the wrong 
notion, which this essay combats, supplies for 
infidelity its chief if not its only ground upon 
which to stand. 

But Christianity is not a contrivance ; it is 
God's influence through Christ among men. 
Its design is not to rescue a certain chosen 
number from a perishing world, but to change 
the world. "God so loved the world." * '*I 
am the light of the world'* ^ Jesus said. He 
i \ was '*to save the world. '' ^ John said, *'He is 

' the propitiation, not for our sins only, but 

for the sins of the whole world."* The in- 
tent of God in Christ was not to organize a 
club or lodge of "perfect" people, which by 
additions to its membership was finally to 
enroll every human being on its books. His 
method was not to ?nake a church, as one 
would make a house or a box, or make an 
association or society, but to grow a church. 
For the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of 
mustard seed, a lump of leaven, seed growing 
secretly.^ His purpose was a development 
of a spirit among men, a renovation of their 

* John iii. x6. * i John ii. 2. 

• John viii. 12, etc. ■ Matt. xiii. 
' John iii. 17. 

238 



THE INCARNATION 

character and quality, and not an outward 
separation of some men from all others. This 
being true, it follows that the church, or that 
body of men representing the work of God, 
will not be ideal and relatively complete until 
the development is very far advanced. In its 
early stages it will, of course, be very incom- 
plete; it will be a prey to wrong ideas; it will 
show monstrous mistakes; it will be full of 
perversions and errors. It is no sign it is not 
divine, that it has these flaws; it is truly 
divine if it shows it has inner vitality enough 
to live through them, to cast them aside, as- 
the seed bursts its husk, pushes through the 
soil, and proceeds to make first the blade, 
then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. 
Therefore, as a holy institution the church is 
a failure, and the arguments of the infidel are 
correct. Grant him his premise, and you 
cannot escape his conclusion. But as the 
body containing a Holy Spirit it has evidenced 
constantly its divine origin by just that growth 
one would expect. 

Christianity is not separate from humanity, \ 
but is incorporated within it. Christianity is 
human just as much as it is divine. If it was 
wholly divine, it would be useless, for we 
could never be touched by it; and it would 
be just as useless if wholly human, for then 
there would be nothing in it to lift us. It 

239 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

must be both if it is to help us. It must be 
a part of us, and in consequence it must grow 
with our growth, partake of our imperfections, 
and be subject to all the vicissitudes necessary 
to the development of creatures out of beast- 
liness and narrowness into godliness and 
grandeur. The influence of God is always 
utterly pure and elevating, but men's appre- 
hension and practice of that influence will be 
a thing of progressive stages. All life is an 
unfolding; Christianity is a life; therefore 
Christianity among men must be a gradual 
l- widening and enlarging of them. 

It is because we do not appreciate this that 
we stumble over those instances in the Old 
Testament that, while represented to be a 
part of God's religion, were foreign to God's 
nature. The cruelties and inhumanities there 
related were simply illustrations of how a half- 
savage community worked out the influence of 
God within it. Many of the commands and 
permissions given by Moses and the prophets 
seem to be wrong, but were relatively right ;^ 
though they now appear faulty to us who know 
God in Christ, yet they were ever in advance 
of the people. If they had been always and 
absolutely right, they would never have influ- 

^ As Ex. xxi. 21 ; xxii. i8, etc., and others countenancing slav- 
ery, polygamy, slaughter, the killing of witches and the like. 
** And Jesus answered and said, For the hardness of your heart he 
[Moses] wrote you this precept." Mark x. 5. 

240 



THE INCARNATION 

enced the Jews at all, but would have simply 
driven them to despair, because it would 
have been impossible for them to obey. God 
is leading His people in the Old Testament; 
and the shepherd cannot lead his flock unless 
he goes on just before them. For Him to 
have stood in the far-off gates of absolute 
right and from thence called His people, 
would have been for them not to have heard 
His voice at all, or, hearing it, not in the 
remotest degree to have understood it. So 
in law and psalm and prophecy we behold the 
influence of Jehovah working as leaven among 
a primitive and barbarous people. Con- 
templating the Old Scriptures in this light, 
they become luminous with divinity, and we 
are furnished the principle by which to dis- 
criminate between the divine and the human 
in the Book. Particularly in David do we 
see a rugged, half-civilized, kingly man, full 
of gross errors, fleshly and impetuous, yet 
permeated by a divine spirit that lifts him, 
struggling, weeping, and warring, up to some 
of the loftiest conceptions of Deity the mind 
of man has ever conceived. As an angelic 
being, David is a caricature; as a man of 
God, as an example of God moving upon and 
raising up a most human man, he is a splen- 
did example. 

Let us, therefore, freely admit all the faults 

241 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

which an accusing infidelity lays at our door. 
Let us not boast that the church has never 
acted more like a wild beast than a child of 
God, but let us boast that it has had within it 
a divine power to shake off these errors and 
sins, to weep for them, and to have the cour- 
age to try to do better. The proof of the 
church's claim to be of God is not its impec- 
cability, but its progress. 

Let us glance over the history of the church. 
Rather, let us see how the influence of God 
has fared since coming upon earth in the 
Christ. Conceiving Christianity as a some- 
thing that came into the world some two 
thousand^ years ago, that persisted through 
the dark ages, that reappeared in the modern 
era with unfaded strength, and that to-day is 
the most virile influence in civilization, we 
must admit that it is not only a divine, but 
also a most human thing. No better key to 
our correct apprehension of its career could 
be found than the account of the birth of its 
Founder. Many have taken offense at the 
alleged parentage of Jesus. Some have 
allowed its mystery to thrust them into doubt, 
some have treated the story as an absurdity, 
and still others have made it an occasion for 
blasphemy. But that His Father was the 
Holy Spirit and His mother was the woman 
Mary is in the most philosophical and reason- 

242 



THE INCARNATION 

able accord not only with the events recorded 
in His earthly life, but also with the vacillat- 
ing history of His church. That hypothesis 
is the most reasonable and scientific which 
accounts most nearly for all the phenomena. 
And what theory of the origin of this church 
is so satisfactory and agreeable to what we 
know of its fortunes as to suppose that it is 
half human and half divine? If you were to 
compose a story in which the hero is the child 
of a fairy father and a wolf mother, you would, 
if you were a skillful artist, depict one in whom 
the brutal and the ethereal traits are deftly 
intermingled. Sometimes his face would 
shine with an evanescent beauty and his step 
would be too light to crush a cowslip, and 
again he would be fierce, bloody, and repul- 
sive, and not infrequently his manner would 
strangely combine suggestions of both the 
fairy and the beast. Does not the story of 
the church in some such way demonstrate its 
dual origin? 

It is not meant that Jesus personally evi- 
denced His human blood by imperfections, 
for none of us '*accuseth Him of sin.'' In 
this first product of God and man the strong 
personality of God so completely suffused the 
grosser nature of His mother that, though He 
was in all points like as we are, yet was He 
faultless. He was **the First-born of many 

243 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

brethren," and as such the perfect type of 
what we are to become when we have been 
changed from glory to glory by the Spirit 
until we shall be like Him. In His person 
He represents humanity as it shall be when 
it is one with God ''even as He is one with 
the Father*'; that combination that seems so 
impossible, yet which dwells as a radiant ideal 
ever before men; thoroughly human, yet 
holy, harmless, undefiled. In Him God illus- 
trated what His personal influence can do for 
humanity. 

But Christianity, as a germ planted in man- 
kind, did not leap at once to the perfection of 
this God-man, but has grown painfully and 
slowly, exhibiting at once the power of its 
Father and the frailty of its mother. Let us 
consider that growth in its infancy, in its 
youth, and in its manhood. 

And first, its birth. The curse pronounced 
upon Eve was that in sorrow she should 
bring forth her children. And not only do 
men enter life through the gates of anguish, 
but all great ideas are born in travail. The 
great creators of literature were men who 
drank deep of the cup of agony: blind Homer, 
exiled Dante, imprisoned Bunyan, lonely Mil- 
ton. Political ideas come forth in revolution 
and struggle; democracy has been baptized 
in blood. The advent of any great world 

244 



THE INCARNATION 

epoch has been attended with fierce convul- 
sions, mighty pains. And thus, also, this 
religion, destined to be prolific in letters, to 
revolutionize theories of government, to work 
gigantic reforms, to stimulate the human brain 
by the sublimest ideas it has ever entertained, 
was ushered into being amid the throes of a 
distracted world. The birth of Jesus was 
attended by the slaughter of all the babes of 
Bethlehem; His death was a crucifixion. 
And what giant passions were called forth by 
the efforts of the young religion, after its 
Author's death, to establish itself in the 
hearts of men! For three centuries the com- 
mon people raged in riot against the disciples 
of Christ; the emperors smote them again 
and again with their mailed hand; fire, sword, 
and wild beast were turned loose upon them; 
and in no period of history have blacker, 
more hideous cruelties and more terrible suf- 
ferings been displayed than during this time, 
the days of the entrance of Christianity into 
mankind. 

Thus did Earth bring forth her Son, thus 
found this Son a place among her other sons. 
For she has other children. Confucianism, 
strange, silent, respectful, with a stolid face 
of helpless misery and a mind full of inven- 
tions, looking ever longingly to the past; 
Egypt, her dead boy, once strong and glori- 

245 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

ous, now buried beneath the debris of history. 
Her Roman son was stern and vaunting, seek- 
ing to rule all his brethren with a rod of iron. 
Islam was her child Ishmael, fierce, fiery, 
iconoclastic. To each in turn has the mother 
looked for succor, but each left her in despair, 
unable to heal her deep misery. It is this 
child, Christianity, this child at whose birth 
among her sheep and oxen the angels rained 
down their hallelujahs; this child toward 
whose coming the prophets strained their 
eager eyes; this child which she called Im- 
manuel, God with us — it is this child to whom 
she stretches out her arms for help. 

Passing from the birth to the infancy of the 
new religion which embodied the influence of 
God, we see that in its babyhood it was like 
its Father. Infants are always pure and sweet. 
Early Christianity was almost idyllic. Even 
Gibbon pays respect to the spotless character 
of the early church. It is only when children 
grow up and begin to absorb their environ- 
ment that they lose their artless loveliness. 
Although Christianity was a child of God, it 
was left in the hands of its mother. Earth.* 
It soon grew like her, and as she impressed 
herself upon it the infantine beauty gave way 
to the lines of excess. Christianity, the son 

^ The reader is to bear always in mind that the mother means 
here humanity rather than the Virgin Mary personally. 

246 



THE INCARNATION 

of the world, has been long sowing its wild 
oats. It is not without significant connection 
with our present thought that the dominant 
church exalted Mary, the mother^ during the 
period of the church's worst deeds; while 
since the standard of morality has risen, since 
the Reformation, it has been exalting more 
and more the personality and work of the 
Holy Spirit, the Father, Had Christianity 
not been corrupt, it would not have been the 
child of man ; had it not ever striven against 
that corruption, it would not have been the 
child of God. 

The traces of its human parentage are all 
too well known. It became cruel, and slew 
more men in wars against heretics than Jew 
and Roman had slain in their persecutions. 
Wars were prosecuted, and armies were led by 
popes, the vicars of the Prince of Peace. 
Christianity originated the Holy Inquisition, 
the most consummate engine for torture ever 
devised by man or devil. It became ambi- 
tious, grasping after the prizes of earthly 
position, greedy to reign. Its ministry were 
vowed to celibacy that they might have no 
family ties to divide their loyalty to the church, 
and thus interfere with the immense design of 
sweeping all thrones and kingdoms into its 
hand. It became greedy. In every land 
where it set up its banner it accompanied the 

247 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

preaching of individual self-denial with cor- 
porate rapacity, seizing the fattest revenues 
and choicest lands for itself. At one time 
the church owned two-thirds of the land of 
western Europe. Watching by the bedside 
of the dying, it mingled in its ghostly influ- 
ence the pardon of sins and the securing of 
legacies. It trafficked in purgatory and 
indulgences. It became impure. Prelates 
were noted for their licentiousness. Condemn- 
ing the marriage of priests, it winked at con- 
cubinage. It was its mother Earth's own 
child — drunken, lecherous, idle, earthy. 

It became proud. Among populations of 
starving paupers it raised glittering cathe- 
drals, imposing piles of masonry and art, 
blessing God by gold and marble and by 
weird chantings among forests of stately pil- 
lars, while it was cursing men by rack and 
thumb-screw. The court must obey the cowl ; 
kings., must receive their crowns from the 
head of the church. While Jesus rebuked him 
who called Him master, bishops and arch- 
bishops proudly resented the abatement of 
one jot or tittle of their numerous titles and 
honors. The successor of Peter the fisher- 
man shone in gems, wrapped his delicate 
limbs in purple and fine linen, and excelled the 
pomp of Oriental monarchs. 

All this, and more, it is idle to deny. It is 

248 



THE INCARNATION 

deeply, shamefully true. When the infidel 
rehearses these things he is but telling what 
we frankly and fully admit. But there is 
more he does not say. He fails to note that 
it was not the skeptic nor the worldling that 
rebuked the shamelessness of the church, 
that protested against its abuses, that sealed 
his testimony against its evil doings by his 
own martyrdom. It was not the philosopher 
nor critic nor scientific gentleman; it was the 
Christian, prayerful, devout, believing God 
even more than the church believed Him, 
that worked its reformation. It was Savon- 
arola, Huss, Farel, Zwingli, Luther, Wick- 
lif, and Wesley, and not Galileo, Kepler, 
Kant, Spinoza, and Spencer, who roused the 
church to wash its bloody hands and clean its 
filthy garments before the Lord. In other 
words, the church emerged from its low 
estate by a power within itself — evil as its 
ways had become — not by any external power. 
And bad as this mother's child was in the 
long night of mediaevalism, it was never as bad 
as she. With all its colossal faults, it was 
never so faulty as the world in which it lay. 
Its errors stand out so conspicuously because 
we know its Father. It was cruel in an age of 
utter cruelty, barbarous in an age of lowest 
barbarism, unclean in an age of absolute filth, 
ignorant in an age of blindness. The clergy 

249 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

even in those days were as a whole a little 
better than the men of the world, although 
they should have been much better. And the 
church was never at any time during those 
dark days without evidences of its divine Sire. 
Did not indications of Him flash out in S. 
Bernard and Ambrose of Milan and Thomas 
a Kempis? And were they not to be seen in 
the spirit that erected hospitals and universi- 
ties, in the real charity and self-denial that 
marked the early days of the brotherhoods 
of S. Francis and S. Dominic? Considered 
relatively, the Christianity of even those 
gloomy times must be credited with an ele- 
ment of mercy, hope, democracy, brother- 
hood, and morality, which the unprejudiced 
student cannot find in the very best that 
heathenism has ever done; it is only when we 
consider the church absolutely, or compare it 
with what it ought to have been, that its his- 
tory seems so iniquitous. 

Blood will tell. Christianity is a divine 
influence, but its work is to develop human 
beings. Earth is its mother. If it had 
always been holy, it would not be our child, 
but a foundling, a divine waif, which would 
have wandered awhile upon earth and died of 
homesickness.* Its ideals stamp it as heav- 

' See Bushnell's ** Salvation by Man." in " Christ and His Sal- 
vation," p. 271. 

250 



THE INCARNATION 

enly; the corruptions incident to its develop- 
ment stamp it as earthly. If the inspirations 
it infuses in us show that it was conceived by 
the Holy Ghost, the flaws in its practice show 
that it is born of the Virgin Mary. Thus 
the birth at Bethlehem is at once a fact and a 
symbol. Our religion is child of sky and 
cloud; son of God and son of Mary; very God 
and very man. 

It was not, perhaps, without divine purpose 
that, after Christianity had been engrafted in 
the race and its literature embodied in the 
perfect and delicate language of the Greeks, 
the waves of barbarism should roll over 
Europe and reduce mankind almost to a state 
of primitive barbarism, in order that this 
new influence should grow up through the 
successive periods of progress and make a 
civilization of its own, a civilization grounded 
upon its own ideas, and not upon those of the 
Greeks or Romans. All the luxuriant vege- 
tation of Greece and Rome was plowed under 
by the barbaric hordes, and lay long in the 
soil wherein this new *'branch of God*s plant- 
ing" was to grow, that it might spring from 
its own earth and unfold with the unfolding 
of men's minds. 

Passing now from the youth we come to the 
manhood of this child, Christianity. The 
pessimistic opinions about our day are un- 

251 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

founded. Our alarm is based upon the ob- 
servance of the decay of old institutions, the 
passing of old forms of thought, the wearing 
away of old vestments of belief; we do not 
always remember that new wine cannot be put 
in old wineskins. The world to-day has a 
I truer conception of Christ than it ever had 
before; this new conception must make new 
institutions as garments for itself. Why 
should we care if venerable forms decay, if so 
be that Christ be magnified? '*Thou fool! 
that which thou sowest is not quickened 
except it die." Out of the rotting bulb 
springs the lily, out of the decomposed acorn 
^ shoots the new oak, and out of the ferment 

/ of these times the personal influence of God 

is creating in us still truer ideas of what His 
religion means. The nature of the stronger 
parent will eventually dominate in the child. 
Slowly but surely the divine Spirit is imprint- 
ing His nature upon all our religious ideas. 
To be sure, the church is still stupid, dull, 
irresponsive to its high calling, but more and 
more the signs of its Father are showing. 
The trend of modern Christian thought, senti- 
ment, and practice is more and more toward 
the character of God. Christ, as the very 
Face and Word of God, is moving upon men, 
even as He has been moving to raise them up 
from savagery to intelligence. 

252 



THE INCARNATION 

He told us that, as there is but one God, 
so there is but one brotherhood. All men are 
of one blood. We are still a long way off 
from realizing the meaning and implication of 
this fact to the full, but how much already 
has it softened our asperities and broken down 
the divisions among us! 

We owned slaves. Men of another color 
we bought and sold as cattle. And we verily 
thought we did right. But He kept whisper- 
ing in our ears, **They are brothers, brothers, 
brothers!" We grew uneasy. We had no 
rest because He would not let us forget the 
black men were brothers. By and by we burst 
forth, **If they be brothers, let them rise and 
stand up equal with us!*' War followed. The 
nation was like to be rent and ruined. War 
passed. The. clouds blew off on the winds of 
peace. He smiled and said, **You did clum- 
sily, but well ; you have set free your brothers. " 

Little children worked in mines and fac- 
tories until their ghosts peeped out through 
their gaunt bodies. He showed us them, and 
put His hand on them, and said, *'Why have 
you cursed them when I have blessed them?" 
So we set the children free from stunting 
labor. We built schoolhouses for them. We 
took the millions of money before spent in 
war and gave it to train and teach the little 
ones. 

253 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

Woman was but a more excellent beast. 
He gave us no rest until we released her from 
the harem and unyoked her from among the 
oxen and took her hand and raised her to the 
throne of love. We were shamed from our 
lives of license and uncleanliness, because He 
said to us, '*They twain shall be one flesh/' 
So we built woman a temple and called it 
"Home." We rescued love from beastliness 
and linked it with loyalty. And all because 
He would have it so. 

We had a system of political economy which 
said, *' Labor is also a commodity; it is to be 
bought cheap and sold dear, even as corn; it 
also is under the law of demand and supply." 

But this displeased Him. '*How can the 
laborer be a brother and a thing at the same 
time?" He asked. Then we awoke, we are 
now awakening, to protest that labor is not a 
tool of capital, but the partner of capital and 
its co-worker. The old system of competition 
and individualism, that worked measurably 
well when the laborer owned his own tools, we 
endeavored to carry over into a social state 
where capital owned all the tools and the 
laborer had nothing to bring to market but 
his hands. Then there was great evil; for 
the workman was again reduced to a slave, 
and his price was his wage. So He gave us 
no rest until we cut the laborer's hours from 

254 



THE INCARNATION 

twelve to eleven, from eleven to ten, from ten 
to eight, so that he should have some time to 
make manhood as well as wages. 

We gloried in war. Militarism like a 
deathly pest infected our literature, our imagi- 
nation, our legislation, our whole life. Then 
He said again, '* Brothers! brothers!'* And 
we could but think, *'If brothers, why war- 
riors?** So He took the spear and showed us 
how to make it a pruning-hook, and the sword 
how to make it a plowshare. Gradually, 
gently. He led us on. At first private wars 
gave way to courts ; then came partial spots 
of peace called *'the king's peace,** and 
"God*s peace**; at length, when He had got 
the ear of the two foremost nations of earth, 
He said, "If two men go to court, why not 
two nations?** So began international arbi- 
tration. Whereat we prospered, for He was 
pleased with us. 

He chose the lowly among us, and we were 
amazed, for we thought some men better than 
others. We had aristocracies and plutocracies, 
we had bespangled courts and nobilities. But 
He kept saying, ''Brothers, brothers!** And 
because He gave us no respite we put aside 
monarchies and titles, and we sentenced the 
idea of privileged classes to death. We put 
the ballot in the hand of even the hod-carriers, 
because He insisted that we are brothers. 

255 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

Then there was much confusion and corrup- 
tion, and some wise men said democracy is a 
failure. But He bids us wait patiently until 
it works out a nobler manhood. 

Criminals we had. We punished them. 
We killed them. We called them enemies of 
the social order. But He still would say, 
'^Brothers! brothers!" So we ceased first to 
mutilate and torture them. Then we left off 
to a great extent murdering them. We are 
now beginning to question if it is right to 
punish them. It is God's business to punish. 
So, therefore, we are trying to help even the 
criminals, because He calls them our brothers. 
We build reformatories, establish indeter- 
minate sentences, and seek in many ways to 
cure and not exterminate the criminal. Ever 
because He says to us, **Cure, heal, help; do 
not avenge, punish, destroy." 

In view of all this why should we clutch at 
the decaying forms while the life is so full 
about us? Let the dead past go. The future 
is full of hope. The light of life is breaking 
upon the earth. 

"Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky! 
Ring out the old, ring in the new; 
Ring, happy bells, across the snow; 
Ring in the Christ that is to be! ** 

There is much uneasiness in religion just 
now. It seems to be an age of theological 

256 



THE INCARNATION 

unsettling. But while some may view all this 
with alarm, it would seem that the true view 
IS not to consider progress as doing away with 
religion, but religion as doing away by its 
progress, with forms no longer suited to its 
growth. The present pangs are merely 
^'growing pains.** The religion of Jesus is 
not a set form; it is a principle of human 
development. As it masters one age it forms 
a certain body or shell for itself out of the 
current notions of that age. Perfectly true 
and pure in itself, yet it must get such imper- 
fect shape as the imperfectly formed ideas of 
that age may furnish, having, as Paul says, 
*'this treasure in an earthen vessel." By and 
by, when it has grown and lifted men up into 
another plane of thought, coming into a larger 
age, the old shell becomes too narrow, it 
cramps its contents, the form that formerly 
protected its growth now hinders its growth. 
Then, like the chick in its shell, it picks and 
picks until it comes out into the fuller life 
for which it is prepared. That picking is 
what we call doubt. All advance in thought- 
life begins in skepticism. Not the irreverent 
sort which revolts at religion because it 
forbids sin, but the reverent sort that longs 
for a deeper, truer word for the growing 
idea. This is what Tennyson meant when he 
wrote : 

257 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

"There lives more faith in honest doubt, 
Believe me, than in half the creeds." 

The revelation of God must be reasonable, 
fitting the instincts of natural religion, sup- 
plementing by its full light that 'Might which 
lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world.'* And it is reasonable; the harsh and 
repugnant, the mechanical and absurd appur- 
tenances to theology were not at all in the 
early Christianity of the days of the Greek 
theologians, but were grafted upon our reli- 
gion during the dark ages of scholasticism.^ 
In our days we are simply shaking off the 
incubus of Latin thought and getting back to 
the simplicity of Christ and the earlier fathers 
of the church. 

Christianity is now apparently torn and 
divided in its theology simply because we are 
living in an age of liberty. But in all this 
diversity and conflict we are vastly nearer the 
truth than in the days of apparent uniformity. 
For our religion is peculiarly adapted to grow 
in an atmosphere of freest discussion and 
untrammeled doubt and unhindered opposi- 
tion. It dwindles and pines under the shadow 
of any sort of authority or human protection. 

* " For a thousand years those who came after him [Aug^us- 
tine] did little more than reaffirm his teaching, and so deep is the 
hold which his long supremacy has left upon the church, that his 
opinions have become identified with divine revelation, and are 
all that the majority of the Christian world yet know of the reli- 
gion of Christ."—" Continuity of Christian Thought," p. 270. 

258 



THE INCARNATION 

The widest variety of opinion is necessary. 
For all warring opinions must prove their truth 
each by striving to help men most, by excel- 
ling in benevolence and good-will and all the 
tender humanities Christ gave as the test of 
real truth. There is more of the spirit of 
Jesus among men now than in any era in his- 
tory. Men may hiss the church, and it hurts ; 
but what of it, if they reverence still the 
Christ, and scorn the church only because it 
is not like Him? More and more all men are 
turning to the Master for the solution of the 
problems of life and death. Sociology and 
politics and every reform are quoting Him 
more and more, each party shaming the other 
because it fails to measure up to His ideals. 
We cannot gauge the influence of Jesus by 
arithmetic. In public opinion, in the trend 
of reforms, in the undertone of literature, in 
the quietly accepted rules of social life, I find 
more of our Master. 

"God *s in His heaven; 
All 's right with the world! " 

There is not the wide gap between the 
church and the world there was in apostolic 
days. The church is not as pure now as 
then ; this is often charged. But we are apt 
to forget that while the church as such may 
not be so near His ideal, the outlying world 

259 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

is much nearer, and Christ came to save the 
world. No man with good judgment can deny 
that with all its evil, the present age is much 
nearer the ideas of Jesus than the age of 
Augustus. Therefore, facing Him, let the 
church say, **He must increase, but I must 
decrease." It may be that the church is to 
be cast aside for its refusal to go on according 
to God's plan; we cannot tell. Or it may 
rather be, and this is our prayer and hope, 
that it will rise renewed, grasping the full 
meaning of its opportunity, and in the century 
to come still make good its claim to be the 
body of Christ. 

Certain it is that unless we rise to a higher 
conception of God's work, to truer ideas of 
what salvation and eternal life and the resur- 
rection mean, we cannot long linger in this 
age. We cannot continue as an anachronism. 
We must shake off the bands and swaddling 
clothes of Latin theology and return to the 
simplicity of Christ. And there are many 
signs that the church is doing this. In the 
wide liberty of discussion we are developing 
an orthodoxy of spirit. In the extreme 
diversity of sects we are laying the foundation 
of the true oneness of Christ, which is not 
uniformity of opinion or ritual, but '*the unity 
of the Spirit in the bond of peace,*' while 
unity of organization is a bond of contention. 

260 



THE INCARNATION 

There is no true unity which is not made up 
of variety, else the parts will not fit together. 
It may be but a fond and foolish dream, but 
the vision will rise before his eyes who sees in 
every church some measure of the Spirit, vary- 
ing according to the different dispositions of 
men, the vision of the one universal church 
of Christ on earth, formed not by law nor by 
authority, but by the common consent and 
desire of the common sense of a race fully 
emancipated into the liberty of Christ Jesus, 
in which church all churches shall have a 
share, each shall lay a stone or frame a soft- 
shining window; in which church there shall 
be a ritual of service according to the Roman 
form, preserving the Latin tongue for its 
sonorous beauty (it being no more an *'un- 
known tongue** when all know or may know 
what it means), and the Anglican public pray- 
ers, and the Methodist enthusiasm, and the 
glow and spirituality of all the quietistic 
sects, and the sterling principle of the Pres- 
byterians, and the democratic government of 
the Congregational bodies, and the boldness 
to descend into the slums that is the glory of 
the Salvation Army, and if there be any others 
who name the name of our Master, even their 
portion also: '* Jesus Christ Himself being 
the chief corner-stone, in whom all the build- 
ing fitly framed together groweth unto an holy 

261 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

temple in the Lord; the whole, accorduig to 
the effectual working in the measure of every party 
making increase and building itself up in 
love." 

In those days, soon to come, shall the sun 
as he runs his rim of light around a wakening 
world upon the Lord's day, touch the harp of 
praise in all temples, and the air shall fill with 
the Te Deum, the universal hymn, sung by all 
nations and by the islands of the sea, by **all 
men everywhere lifting up holy hands without 
wrath or doubting'' : 

"We praise Thee, O God: 
We acknowledge Thee to be the Lord: 
All the earth doth worship Thee, 
The Father everlasting. 
To Thee all angels cry aloud; 
The heavens and all the powers therein 
To Thee cherubim and seraphim 
Continually do cry: 
Holy! holy! holy! 
Lord God of Sabaoth: 
Heaven and earth are full 
Of the majesty of Thy glory." 



262 



SUGGESTIONS 

Christianity is human as much as it is divine. 

It is only when we conceive God's purpose to be 
the development of mankind that we can understand 
the Old Testament. 

The proof of the church's claim to be of God is 
not its impeccability but its progress. 

Christianity, conceived by Deity and born of human- 
ity, has exhibited both the power of its Father and 
the frailty of its mother. 

Infants are always pure and sweet; it is only when 
they grow up and begin to absorb their environment 
that they become corrupt; early Christianity was 
idyllic; then for a chiliad or so it has been sowing its 
wild oats; some day it will be a man. 

Religion has had many reformations, but none of 
them were ever made by irreligious men; Christianity 
is reformed only by Christians. 

Bad as the church has been, there has never been 
a time when it was quite so bad as the world in which 
it lay. 

All advance in thought-life begins in skepticism; 
not the irreverent sort which revolts at religion be- 
cause it forbids sin, but the reverent sort which longs 
for a wider word for a widening idea. 

If the church is not so near Christ as it was in 
apostolic days, the outlying world is a good deal 
nearer; and Christ came to save the world. 



CHAPTER X 

THE LEAVEN 

The Personal Influence of God is the Propagating 
Power of Christianity 



"The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which 
a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till 
the whole was leavened/' — Jesus, Matt. xiii. 33. 

" The most essential feature of Man is his improv- 
ableness." — John Fiske, Destiny of Man, p. 71. 

"Christianity, then, has a power to prepare a godly 
seed. It not only takes hold of the world by its con- 
verting efficacy, but it has a silent force that is much 
stronger and more reliable; it moves, by a kind of 
destiny, in causes back of all the eccentric and casual 
operations of mere individual choice, preparing, by 
a gradual growing in of grace, to become the great 
populating motherhood of the world." — Horace 
BusHNELL, The Out' Populating Power of the Chris- 
tian Stock > 

" The desire of power in excess caused angels to 
fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused Man 
to fall; but in charity there is no excess; neither 
Angel nor Man come in danger by it." — Bacon, Es- 
says , Of Goodness and Goodness in Nature. 



CHAPTER X 

Religion being merely the personality of 
God, Christianity the personality of Christ, 
how is it to be propagated? Can a personality 
be taught? What is the divine method of the 
spread of the kingdom of heaven? 

Jesus had before Him as models three 
forms by which vast systems had been spread 
among men, each of them having had great 
success. The Greek method was by reason- 
ing. By argument and the skill of dialectic 
the philosophy of Greece had dominated the 
master minds of the world. The Roman 
method was organization. By force and dis- 
play of material grandeur Rome had assumed 
the control of the earth. The Oriental 
method was by the imagination. By playing 
upon the vague, unknown mysteries of life 
and death the powerful faiths of the East had 
risen to wide dominion. But Jesus chose none 
of these three. Because His religion was not 
a philosophy it could not be advanced by 
logic; because it was not an institution nor 
an organization it could not be aided, but 
only hindered, by authority and force; be- 

267 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

cause it was not a superstition, it could in 
nowise be assisted by shadowy fears. His 
religion was none of these; it was a Life. 
As such it could only be spread by contact. 
As life goes from man to man so the eternal 
life was to follow the same channel. The 
disciples were called the salt of the earth and 
the light of the world ;^ and the personal 
influence of God was to go from individual to 
individual even as the flavor of salt is diffused 
from particle to particle, or as light is passed 
along a signal line from torch to torch, each 
lighting the next. 

But the manner of the Gospel's growth is 
best seen in the parable of the leaven.^ The 
illustration there given is so vivid and the 
analogy has such perfect truth throughout 
that it may perhaps repay us to pursue it. 

In the very nature of fermentation we may 
see a profound illustration of the way in which 
the personality of Jesus affects the personality 
of the man. For the ferment does not pro- 
duce the change in the mass by entering into 
chemical union with it, and thus producing a 
new substance different from both; which is 
the way that chemical changes are made, 
oxygen, for instance, uniting with hydrogen 
to produce water, or uniting with nitrogen to 
produce common air; but the alteration is 

' Matt. V. 13, 14. « Matt. xiii. 33. 

268 



THE LEAVEN 

strictly in the wort itself, on account of the 
presence of the leaven. This, in a peculiarly 
beautiful way, illustrates the '^conversion'* of 
the natural man into the new man in Christ 
Jesus, from the godless to the Christian man. 
For it makes clear the two points about con- 
version which seem so strange. First, the 
change is not spontaneous; no man of him- 
self, without the presence of God in him, can 
develop into a Christian. Yet, secondly, the 
change after all is simply a change in the 
man; although different in his character, yet 
he is the same, with the same passions and 
will as before. Take the fermentation of 
milk, the souring of sweet milk, a process by 
which the milk sugar of the milk, by a mere 
re-arrangement of its particles, passes into 
lactic acid. Professor Dittmar cites this case 
of milk, and after comparing it with instances 
of mere chemical change, concludes that 
"fermentations, as a class of chemical reac- 
tions, are characteristically non-spontaneous, 
and consequently must be caused by reagents, 
although these reagents have no place in the 
mere balance-sheet of the reaction. In fact, ' ' 
he continues, ''experience shows that no fer- 
mentable chemical species will ferment . . . 
unless it be kept in direct contact with some 
specific 'ferment,' which, although it contrib- 
utes nothing to the substance of the products 

269 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

which figure in the equation, nevertheless 
induces the reaction *by its presence,' as the 
phrase goes. "^ Although this does not 
explain the rationale of God's action on the 
soul (for that is as inexplicable to us as 
the reason why fermentation takes place only 
in the presence of leaven, yet leaving the 
leaven unchanged, is inexplicable to the sci- 
entists), yet it illustrates how it is that after 
conversion no part of the individuality of the 
soul has been lost, the soul and God still each 
retain their respective personalities, yet the 
soul is utterlv different from what it was be- 
fore, **by a rearrangement of its particles," 
as it were. 

In the acts of Jesus, as narrated in the gos- 
pels, we see how He made use of this leaven 
method alone, to the exclusion of all other 
methods — that is, He made followers by His 
personal influence only, never by argument, 
by force, nor by any sort of working upon 
superstitions. The Pharisees challenged Him 
to show them a '*sign," to awe them by 
supernal displays into following Him, but He 
replied that "a wicked and adulterous gener- 
ation seeketh after a sign. "^ Again, they 
proposed to argue the case with Him, but 
He refused to fence at logic and confined 

* Encyclopedia Britannica, article "Fermentation." 

• Matt. xii. 39. 

270 



THE LEAVEN 

Himself to illustrations, for '*withoiit a par- 
able spake He not unto them. " ^ Peter seized 
the sword and smote off the ear of the high 
priest's servant, but Jesus rebuked the attempt 
to use force in His kingdom;^ and on another 
occasion, when the disciples wished to call 
down fire from heaven upon their opponents, 
He declared, '*Ye know not what manner of 
spirit ye are of. " ' 

One is struck with the calmness and, it 
almost seems, the apparent indifference of 
Jesus in making converts, as compared 
with the zeal of His followers in after ages. 
There was no enthusiasm in Him for recruit- 
ing and organizing His army of believers. 
Often He openly discouraged them that would 
have come after Him, because their motives 
were bad. To some He said they followed 
Him merely for the loaves and fishes;* an- 
other time He insisted that men should count 
the cost before entering upon such a life ; ^ 
He reminded others that the foxes had holes 
and the birds had nests, but the w^ jn of man 
had not where to lay His head.^ '4 one of His 
disciples took up with Him as a result of the 
issue of a course of reasoning. We do not 
read that one of His true followers became 
such because of His miracles, at least none of 

^ Mark iv. 34. * John vi. 26. 

« Matt. xxvi. 51. * Luke xiv. 28. 

» Luke ix. $5- • Luke ix. 58. 

371 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

His more noted and intimate followers. But 
how were His disciples made? Only by His 
personal influence. "Follow Me/' and 
straightway some forsook their nets, and 
another his seat as a tax-collector, and fol- 
lowed Him. Mary and Martha were devoted 
to Him before ever He raised Lazarus; 'twas 
not His ghostly power, but His own self that 
won them. And after His death the disciples 
went everywhere witnessing for Him. They 
reasoned and they performed miracles, to be 
sure, but it was as witnesses they conquered, 
it was through * 'testimony'' they won others 
to that Christ who had won them. Thus the 
touch of Jesus brought His immediate follow- 
ers, their touch in turn brought others, and 
so on, even as the leaven leaveneth the whole 
lump. 

The wisdom of Jesus in choosing this form 
of power, to which to commit His Gospel, is 
apparent in that personal influence is the 
most powerful ioTCt known to this day among 
men. All other modes of commanding men 
are superficial and leave the inner man un- 
touched. Jesus penetrated beneath all these 
and seized the real force that moves and 
molds mankind. By force and arms you may 
change one's actions — the conduct, but not 
the man. By argument you can change his 
opinions, but not his emotions and his will. 

272 



THE LEAVEN 

By marvelous displays of grandeur and glory 
you can change his feelings, arousing awe, 
admiration, or fear; the sentiments, not the 
reason. By wealth you may bribe him, excite 
his cupidity, and thus again change his con- 
duct, but not his reason nor his will. 

But when you attach a man to you as a 
friend, and he comes under the spell of your 
personality, the whole man is subtly changed 
to become like you. He begins to imitate 
your ways — that is. you are altering his con- 
duct; he begins to talk as you do — that is, 
your opinions are becoming his; his taste and 
feelings copy yours; even his will is conform- 
ing to your will. And all this transformation 
is going on in him with his entire approval; 
he delights in it; and, not as in the case of 
the other agencies, where he resists all other 
forms of power brought to bear on him as 
repulsive to his self-respect, now he boasts of 
and cooperates with the influence of his friend 
in himself. 

Many phases of life show the potency of 
personality. This power is increased by the 
numbers of those partaking of it. By addi- 
tion it acquires dynamic force in geometric 
ratio. So in the unquestioning obedience to 
fashion's decrees, wherein we all quietly sub- 
mit, we are simply yielding to the pressure of 
the persons about us. No one adopts a style 

273 



I 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

of dress because it is reasonable, for these 
styles are often most unreasonable, but we 
meekly yield to the most absurd of them 
rather than resist this force and be called 
eccentric. So what we call public opinion is 
the most mighty power to-day known. The 
two greatest nations of earth are confessedly 
governed by it, and in a less degree are all 
the other civilized countries. Thrones are 
but as reeds before it. It makes armies vic- 
torious or defeats them. It enforces law and 
without it any law is a dead letter. And pub- 
lic opinion is nothing but opinion which has 
gained resistless energy by acquiring the 
power of many strong personalities; it is 
potent or weak in proportion to the numbers 
of men, and the personal force of the men, 
who hold it. Did Jesus foresee that in the 
ages to come this force of personality, to 
which He boldly intrusted the propagation and 
defense of His kingdom, would thus be the 
acknowledged chief power in human govern- 
ment and all human concerns? Did He not 
know that, once His Gospel became the per- 
sonal conviction of a sufficient number and 
quality of men, it would then become an irre- 
sistible tide, needing no law nor army nor 
organization behind it, but sweeping on to 
overwhelm the earth, **as the waters cover 
the sea?'* Men have always been looking for 

274 



THE LEAVEN 

**the power of God** to be manifested in some 
crude, superficial way, not realizing that the 
personality of Jesus is the power of God. 
Thus when He appeared after His resurrec- 
tion. His disciples asked, **Lord, wilt Thou at 
this time restore again the kingdom of 
Israel?**^ And replying. He declared it was 
not for them to know the times and the sea- 
sons; they had the wrong idea of God*s 
power; that power was not to be shown in 
divine pyrotechnics, but it was to operate, as 
leaven, through them; '*But ye shall receive 
power and be witnesses unto Me unto the 
uttermost parts of the earth. " 

Another aspect of the operation of God's 
power in Christ is seen in the secrecy of the 
leaven's working. The change in a man's 
nature when he comes to know Jesus is, in a 
manner, unconscious. Just as when you 
associate with a strong friend you are changed 
to become like him, all the while thinking it 
is of yourself you are changing by your own 
volition. You do not think of yourself as 
doing, liking, and willing things because your 
friend does, likes, and wills them; but you 
suppose you thus act because you wish to. 
He has percolated secretly into your desires 
and tastes^ and changed them, or ever you were 
aware. The heart has spies out to detect all 

' Acts i. 6-7. 

275 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

other forms of attempt to control it; law 
rouses opposition, argument combativeness, 
wealth self-respect, and fear suspicion, but 
personality steals in and captures the heart 
with the heart's consent; this works with, 
the others against, you. 

Thus is Christ called not only the **power 
of God,'' but also '*the wisdom of God."^ 
The divine wisdom is apparent more in the 
way His personality has conqud-ed than in all 
other exhibitions of AlmigHtf intelligence. 
There is more shrewdness, judgment, percep- 
tion, and foresight shown in the operation of 
Jesus than in any other of God's works that 
we can see. The law was a form of God's 
power, but it lost its force and had to give 
way for a better motive. Therefore came 
this new display of wisdom, "Immanuel, God 
with us," which men thought foolish, and 
which a hundred times they have proclaimed 
as dead and gone, but which to-day is the 
most vital power in the human race. 

There is no danger in the fullest use of this 
power. The use of other ways to influence 
men is accompanied with extreme difficulty, 
and has had most lamentable results. Eccle- 
siastical authority has made heresy and rebel- 
lion, arguments have created infidels, wealth 
and social advantages have produced hypo- 

* X Cor. i. 24. 

276 



'S 



THE LEAVEN 

crites. But the personality of God in Christ 
shining in and through men has done good, 
only good, nothing but good. Not that church 
organizations, books of Christian *' evi- 
dences," and the hope of a better social 
standing are bad motives; they are bad only 
when taken in themselves, when there is no 
supreme Christ-person in them. 

The kingdom of God is like leaven also in 
its silence. We naturally turn to things that 
make great noise for our symbols of power. 
This is our childishness. All noise is waste. 
The real power of the lightning's bolt is not 
in the thunder, but in the electricity. What 
we hear in the roar of the locomotive or the 
trolley car is the friction and the offal of 
power; the real force of the steam and the 
electric current is intrinsically silent. So we 
call the army and navy the strength of the 
nation ; but its real strength is in the senti- 
ments of patriotism and heroism, and in the 
skill of hand and ingenuity of brain of its peo- 
ple. In like manner we have been deceived 
as to the real evidence of the power of the 
Gospel. It is not in the number of church 
members; it is still a mistake to ''number 
Israel." It is not in the great endowments 
of Christian institutions and the revenues of 
the church. It is not in the laws. Church 
and law are not supports of the Gospel. 

277 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

The Gospel is the support of them. Take 
the personal influence of Jesus out of them 
and they would crumble like a mummy. It is 
the life that gives efficiency to the body, not 
the body to the life. God was not in the 
earthquake nor the storm nor the fire, but in 
the still, small voice. The potency of Chris- 
tianity to-day is not in the great works Chris- 
tians are doing, but it is in what Christians 
are. Our efficiency is not tested by our voli- 
tion^ but by our condition. 

Leaven is also mysteriously invisible. No 
science has as yet explained how and why 
leaven changes the wort. Neither has any 
metaphysician explained how and why Christ 
renews the heart in His own image; yet both 
are indisputable facts. So you cannot tell the 
size of the church, and who are of Christ, and 
who are not; no man can read that new name 
save him that has it. The church is not 
bounded by its membership. For as a candle 
throws its beams into the darkness, so does 
the church ''shine in a naughty world.*' ^ A 
little here and there, a subtle influence in 
press and legislature and business and soci- 
ety — who shall tell where the refracted rays 
of Christ's personality penetrate? He is fill- 
ing earth with His Spirit as a rosebush fills 

' '* How far that little candle throws its beams! 
So shines a good deed in a naughty world " 

The Merchant of Venice, Act V., Scene i. 

278 



THE LEAVEN 

the garden with its perfume. In addition to 
*'them that are His*' how many feel His 
flavor, His warmth, His magnetism? As the 
light precedes the sun and the earth feels the 
god of day before he rises to beam upon it 
with his own face, so civilization, business, 
society, all human thought and imagination 
and conduct, are quickened and affected by 
the presence of "the Sun of righteousness" 
that has risen *'with healing in his wings*' full 
upon the heart and life of a few. 

The reader of the New Testament has been 
struck by the fact, moreover, that leaven is 
made to illustrate the work of evil as well as 
of good.^ The Jews ate unleavened bread at 
their feast of the Passover because leaven 
was a sign of the workings of heathenism, 
and the chosen nation should be kept un- 
tainted. Jesus warned His disciples to beware 
of the leaven of the Pharisees. In other 
words the kingdom of hell as well as the king- 
dom of heaven is like a lump of leaven, and 
the personality of God works precisely the 
same way in which works also the personality 
of evil beings. It is no new, strange method 
God in Christ adopts. "As by man came 
death, by man, also, came the resurrection 
from the dead." "As in Adam all die, even 
.f^ in Christ shall all be made alive. "^ The 

* Mark viii. 15. • i Cor. xv. 21, 22. 

279 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

terms of the new life are direct antitheses to 
the terms of the old life. Born in sin, born 
again from above ; sin is death, Christ is life ; 
sin is sickness, Christ came healing; sin is 
not outside, but within the very texture of the 
soul ; Christ is to be formed within, not oper- 
ating upon us from without. 

Now, there are three ways in which evil 
affects me — first, personally and consciously, 
then through my environment; and again, by 
heredity. "Even so" Christ operates by His 
influence to save me. 

Personally I am conscious of sin in the 
direct influences brought to bear on me by 
others. Sometimes I am pressed to sin by 
fear, fear of some loss or pain or of temporal 
unpleasantness or disgrace; '*even so" I am 
induced to righteousness by the Gospel's ele- 
vating that fear from its action as a base and 
cowardly feeling and making it to be a noble 
and heroic emotion, as it is manliest of all 
things in a brave man yet to fear his own self- 
respect or the scorn of good men or the dis- 
pleasure of God.^ Fear of a low, sensual life 
is not a craven dread of the consequences of it, 
but a loathing and fleeing from its very self 
as a dreadful thing. Again, my imagination 
tends to lead me astray, being contaminated 



* *' Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, 
The love of love." Tennyson: The Poet. 

280 



THE LEAVEN 

with unclean visions or conceiving for me for- 
bidden pleasures; and *'even so'* Christ cap- 
tures the fancy and sets it upon divine work, 
making it take pleasure in picturing the 
delight of being kind and helpful, filling it 
with anticipations of the joy I may work in 
sad men by my effort, and painting the glories 
of that place in the heavens He has prepared 
for me. Again, my habits are prone to be- 
come evil chains for my spirit; "even so*' His 
work in the world has made churches by 
whose ritual and services I can form good 
habits, His Book preserves the law with its 
regulative moralities, and His own and His 
chief servants' examples encourage me in 
practicing religious routine and the arts of 
holy living, that thus custom may buttress my 
soul when mind and spirit are weak. But, 
most of all, evil affects me directly by arous- 
ing my bad desires, such as greed, ambition, 
jealousy, appetite, and the like. Now, he 
does not come among my desires to stamp 
them out, to make a desert of my heart and 
call it peace; but He comes saying, **What 
God has cleansed call thou not common";^ 
there is no natural appetite nor propensity of 
flesh or spirit that is not holy; I am not to 
kill my flesh by starvation and mutilation ; I 
am to master it. He says not, **Slay thy 

» Acts X. 15. 

281 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

heart," but, **My son, give Me thy heart. *'^ 
He comes not to destroy, but to save life. 
He comes to set all the desires in order, to 
establish regulative harmony where was dis- 
cord. Of loves He approves, so He but be. 
the king of love in me. Eating and drinking 
are right, so they but be '*unto the Lord." 
Ambition is holy, if it be His ambition — to 
serve. Avarice is right, if it be a desire to 
seek "not yours but you,*' not to be rich in 
taking goods from men, but in increasing good 
in men. So He descends into the very cel- 
lars and hidden wells of life, and where sin 
did abound His loving favor does much more 
abound. 

But I not only am worked upon by evil 
directly, but indirectly, through my environ- 
ment unconsciously molding me. There are 
millions sinful, not because they personally 
and deliberately choose to be so, but because 
their surroundings are such that they never 
have known anything else. They live under 
systems of caste and superstition ; all around 
them lust is deified ; cruelty is in the air they 
breathe; they suck in beastliness and sin with 
their mothers* milk. Therefore as sin thus 
is entrenched in environment, **even so*' 
Jesus proposes to change and is changing that 

* Pr. xxiii. 26. 

282 



THE LEAVEN 

environment. As the kingdom of the devil 
has settled into vast institutions and govern- 
ments and public opinions, as in China and 
the cannibal islands, so the kingdom of God 
**even so** develops great churches, civiliza- 
tions, democracies. The condition of any 
man, even a bad man, born in the United 
States, where churches and English civiliza- 
tion and a free government make the atmos- 
phere for him, is vastly better and more like 
Christ than the condition of a man born in 
Central Africa or Middle China, where he sees 
naught but cruelty, tyranny, lechery, and 
superstition: and that without touching the 
personal volition of the man himself. Where 
Christ's influence goes, laws and governments 
and customs and habits of life insensibly are 
elevated, giving the individual a better chance. 
The third way evil works in me is by 
heredity, the most important of all, it is some- 
times said. We can never decide whether 
heredity, environment, or personal volition 
is most responsible for our misdeeds. Per- 
haps it is a useless question; they all inter- 
play; but the personal influence of God in 
Christ is working through all of them, and 
heredity not the least. Paul compares the 
two Adams, setting the one*s work over 
against the other's. And whether we accept 
the modern scientific theory, that man evolved 

283 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

from the beast, or the view heretofore held by 
most churchly teaching, the comparison is 
good scientifically and theologically. That 
is, whether man's rise is a struggle to throw 
off "the heritage of the beast," or to rid him- 
self of the taint of "Adam's fall," it amounts 
to the same thing practically. The gist of 
both ideas is the same ; that I have inherited 
certain evil tendencies, whether evil as 
animalizing me or evil as alienating me from 
God, and that it is for me to lessen the power 
of these traits in me and transmit them in a 
less degree to my child. 

Now, it is a historical fact that previous to 
Christ's personality getting a firm foothold in 
the world — that is, previous to the Reforma- 
tion — no permanent progress was made by the 
race. There were spasmodic rises of certain 
nations into dignity and grandeur, such as 
among the Greeks and Romans, but the lapse 
into decay was speedy; whereas since Jesus 
has been everywhere preached by an open 
Bible as a risen Lord, there has been a gen- 
eral and world-wide progress of mankind. 

Jesus emphasized the sanctity of marriage, 
the family life; and the family is God's insti- 
tution for holding the new generation long 
enough in the lap of the old to rivet progress 
and make the advance in righteousness secure. 
No means is comparable to the family as a 

284 



THE LEAVEN 

vehicle for transmitting personal influence. 
Thus it is the apparent plan of God not only 
to save the individual, but to save the human 
stock. The triumph of the Gospel is to be 
when men are born holy, even as they are 
now born in sin; when the personality of God 
in Christ is to be bred into them, coming as 
a power in the very blood. To this end 
looked the prophets, who declared that *'My 
people shall be all righteous," and **They 
shall not teach, every man his neighbor, say- 
ing, know the Lord; for all shall know Me, 
from the least to the greatest." Through 
these ancient prophets the Lord declared that 
He would make a new covenant with His peo- 
ple, not like the old covenant on Sinai, that 
of outward rules and laws, '*for this is the 
covenant that I will make, saith the Lord ; I 
will put my laws into their mind, and write 
them in their hearts; and I will be to them a 
God, and they shall be to Me a people." 
Thus **Christ, the power of God," is to go on 
purging and clarifying the human stock, re- 
generating it by the same process by which 
it degenerated, flowing into it through the 
avenues of heredity until all men shall be 
born into the world like John the Baptist, 
*' sanctified from their mother's womb."^ 



* ** Before thou earnest forth out of the womb I sanctified 
thee." Jer. i. s. See also Luke i. iS- 

285 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

And now we begin to see the rational, scien- 
tific, common-sense view of the millennium, 
the second advent, the personal reign of Jesus 
on earth. As men misconceived the meaning 
of salvation and heaven and the resurrection, 
grasping the lower, the tangible thought, and 
missing the true and upper thought, so they 
have caricatured the millennium, conceiving it 
to be some theatric return of a bodily Christ 
in the clouds, to take place after the Jews' 
restoration to Judea as a nation, or after the 
world has gone on getting as wicked as it can, 
or after some mystical apocalyptic "time 
and times and a half a time," and all such 
literalistic artificialities. But the millennium 
is to come surely after the manner of God's 
working and Christ's Spirit. His manifest 
plan is by orderly development, not by spec- 
tacular cataclysms. The world is to be 
redeemed "even so" as in Adam it died. The 
personality of God in Christ is to work as 
leaven "until the whole be leavened." Not 
that the millennium is to come by breeding 
alone, but by heredity and environment and 
personal choice, even as sin has spread. 

And what inconceivable majesty and vast- 
ness such a view lends to the whole idea of 
the work of the Gospel. We perceive the 
Christ entering the lists with evil and over- 
coming it by its own means. Being mani- 

286 



THE LEAVEN 

fested to destroy the works of the devil, He 
is attacking wickedness by means subtler than 
its own. We sometimes despair at the lack 
of results in our work for Him. How few are 
converted by our preaching! Our churches 
and Sunday-schools and colleges, how unsatis- 
factory their effect seems to us! How many 
are the forces of the wicked! How many 
are the hypocrites among us! How evasive, 
yet how potent, are the lusts of the flesh 
and the more dangerous weaknesses of the 
spirit! How vast the great heathendoms chat 
still enslave and imbrute men! What intel- 
lect, what social prestige stands over against 
the simplicity of the Gospel! How dominant 
are the great perversions of His truth! How 
selfishness and tyranny and greed have 
invaded business methods! In a word, how 
great are the kingdoms of the '* prince of this 
world!** And what can we, who have naught 
but the preachment of the Gospel, avail 
against the prestige and resources of this 
immense display? 

But when we rise to see God working 
according to the programme of Jesus we begin 
to see wherein is our hope of victory. It is 
in the personal influence of God; and that is 
shown in the testimony, the personal influ- 
ence of His followers. Thus Christ, the Cap- 
tain of our salvation, is not a whit behind 

287 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

the evil one. Is wickedness sly? It can 
creep into no corner of the heart, no depth of 
desire, where the Spirit of Him that made the 
heart cannot find and slay it. Is our imagi- 
nation debauched by the profligate glories of 
sin? Sin can unroll before the mind no 
visions like unto those things which **eye 
hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it 
entered into the mind of man to conceive, 
but which God hath revealed unto us by His 
Spirit which He has given us.*' Do evil 
friends contaminate us? No man nor woman 
has been given such power over us as He has 
given to the gentle mother whose songs have 
lulled our infant slumbers and whose prayers 
cling like changeless dew to our memory, 
songs and prayers of the dying love and risen 
power of our God. Are the immense insti- 
tutions of men, their governments, their 
society, their business practice, corrupt and 
corrupting? As proud icebergs melt before 
the glow of the tropic sun, so shall they dis- 
appear before the invincible gentleness, the 
triumphant warmth and purity of the Sun of 
righteousness whose streaming light has in it 
the potency of Almighty God. Are we 
tainted by heredity? No taint of earthly 
parentage is of force to annul our original 
heredity from the Father when the Christ 
shall raise us up to be heirs of God and joint- 

288 



THE LEAVEN 

heirs with Himself. Through this Man, who 
is the fullness of the Godhead bodily, radiates 
the personal influence of God to the earth; 
secretly as the leaven, strangely as the wind, 
tenderly as a shepherd, irresistibly as destiny, 
He is drawing all men unto Himself. "Christ 
the power of God! Christ the wisdom of 
God! Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, 
the everlasting Father, and the Prince of 
Peace! Of the increase of His government 
there shall be no end, to order it, and to 
establish it, with judgment and with justice 
from henceforth even forever." 

*'0 the depths of the riches both of the 
wisdom and knowledge of God! How un- 
searchable are His judgments, and His ways 
past finding out! 

*'For of Him, and through Him, and to 
Him, are all things; to whom be glory 
forever! Amen!'*^ 

' I Cor. i. 24; Isa. ix. 6; Rom. xi. 33-36. 



SUGGKSTTQ^TS 

In propagating His religion Jesus did not use argu- 
ment, for His religion is not a theory; nor force, for 
His religion is not an organization; nor fear, for His 
religion is not a superstition; but He used personal 
influence, for His religion is a Life. 

Personal influence is a force that increases geo- 
metrically in proportion to the number of those who 
share it. 

Public opinion is nothing but accumulated personal 
influence. 

No other force than personality can change even 
the desires. 

All other forces work against you, personal influ- 
ence with you. 

All other forms of effort to make Christians are 
accompanied with danger, except the form of personal 
influence. 

Church and law are not the support of the Gospel; 
the Gospel is the support of them. 

The aroma of Christ has worked wonders for the 
world, even as the taste of Christ has done for the 
elect. 

The influence of Jesus descends even into the hid- 
den wells of our life. 

Christ's influence reforms not only individuals but 
institutions, giving the individual a better chance. 

Christ also cleanses the channel of heredity. 

God grows things; men make things. 

We well say "Personal Devil," for there is no devil 
but personality. 

One's personal influence alone remains in the world 
as the net result of all he has done. 



CHAPTER XI 

HELL 

The Bible was not Given to Reveal **Last Things,'* 
nor Future Events ; not to Gratify Curiosity, but 
to Reveal the Lav^s of God' s Personal Influence 



V 



I 



"What is that to thee? Follow thou Me! "— Jesus, 
John xxi. 22, 

"Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire, 
And Hell the Shadow of a Soul on fire." 

Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat, Stanza 67. 

"There is no reason, indeed, against our believing 
anything clearly revealed in Scripture ; but there is 
reason against going beyond Scripture with specula- 
tions of our own. One of the many evils resulting 
always from this, is, that we thus lay open Christianity 
to infidel objections, such as it otherwise would have 
been safe from." — Whately, Corruptions of Chris- 
tianity^ p. 210. 

"While Johnson and I stood in calm conference 
by ourselves in Dr. Taylor's garden, at a pretty late 
hour of a serene autumn night, looking up to the 
heavens, I directed the discourse to the subject of a 
future state. My friend was in a placid and most 
benignant frame of mind. 'Sir,' said he, *I do not 
imagine that all things will be made clear to us im- 
mediately after death, but that the ways of Providence 
will be explained to us very gradually.' I ventured 
to ask him concerning the doctrine of future punish- 
ment. Johnson: *Sir, . . . some of the texts of 
Scripture upon this subject are, as you observe, in- 
deed strong; but they may admit of a mitigated inter- 
pretation.* He talked to me upon this awful and 
delicate question in a gentle tone, as if afraid to be 
decisive."— BoswELL,Z2/^ of Johnson, Vol. III., p. 135. 



292 



CHAPTER XI 

There are few qualified to form correct 
notions about the future state of the wicked, 
because long ages of heated controversy have 
set prejudices firmly in most minds by the 
biting mordant of partisan spirit. If one is 
determined that he will hold his present 
opinion true, no matter what may be said, 
it will be manifestly time wasted to read this 
or any other writing which treats upon the 
subject. Theological disputes ranging through 
generations have, however, considerable 
value to the person who is seeking truth 
alone; they prove to him^ that neither side 
can be wholly wrong, else so many sensible 
persons would not continue to choose it, and 
that neither side can be wholly right, else so 
many would not have rejected it; and still 
further, that the whole controversy itself 
cannot be an essential and pivotal element in 
our religion, else God would not have left it 
so that intelligent and pious men could hon- 

' Perhaps it would be more exact to say *'they make it appear 
extremely probable to him," than to say " they prove to him," 
for the variations of error, of course, have no value to locate the 
truth. 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

estly have had such variant views; and fur- 
ther yet, that the real, true view will never be 
discovered by either party gaining a com- 
plete victory and routing the other, else it 
would have been done long ago, but that the 
truth will finally appear, as indeed it has 
appeared in most such debates, from the sub- 
sidence of controversial war, and from the 
perception that after all both sides had some- 
what of truth, and that they were separated, 
not by the wrong logic of the one and the 
right logic of the other, but because they stood 
upon different points of view. 

There are two parties to the dispute as to 
whether the wicked will suffer forever. The 
one insists that if they do not so suffer the 
very heart is cut out of the Gospel. They 
make this question a test of orthodoxy. They 
think that to abate one mite from the eternity 
of the wicked's woes is to let down the gates 
to the presumptuous lawlessness of men; it is 
to make divine justice a farce. If this party 
be called extreme, the opposing party have 
often proved themselves none the less so. 
They have insisted that to make God out as 
capable of allowing His creatures to finally 
continue in misery is a barbarous notion; 
that all who hold to it are ignorant literal- 
ists, and that none except those who believe 
God*s mercy will at last make all men happy 

294 



HELL 

ought to be allowed to open their mouths in 
this enlightened day. 

Now, in one respect, at least, both of these 
factions are wrong, in that they are trying to 
settle a question by reason (or, to be more 
exact, by a priori reasoning), which in the 
nature of the case can only be settled by a 
divine revelation. Nobody knows and nobody 
can possibly ascertain, by arguments drawn 
from that extremely limited sphere of God's 
operations we in this world can observe, what 
is going to take place a billion years from 
now. If God intends for us to know. He will 
tell us, and tell us certainly in clear language. 
Therefore the question must be decided en- 
tirely by the Bible ; and as anything can be 
proved by a person coming to the Bible with 
a ready-made opinion, as he can pick out here 
and there texts to substantiate any view, we 
must call to our aid the only two reliable 
interpreters of the Bible — /. ^., common sense 
and the Spirit of Jesus. 

Opening the sacred volume and reading 
over all that is said upon the subject of the 
sufferings of the wicked, we find, first, that 
as far as the Old Testament is concerned, 
there is no reference to their punishment in 
the next world at all. The old dispensation 
was entirely temporal. The woes pronounced 
were to overtake the rebellious in this life; 

295 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

the extremest penalty for any violation of law 
was death. The author of Hebrews sums up 
that criminal code by saying, **He that 
despised Moses' law died without mercy/' ^ 
While there may be hints or suggestions of 
calamity beyond the grave, Moses and the 
prophets never plainly declared it, and they 
spake understandingly enough when they 
wished. 

It was Christ who ** brought immortality to 
light." It is when we read the New Testa- 
ment that we gain all our distinct information 
about the future state. 

Now, before we read, we must remind our- 
selves why we read the Bible at all. We read 
it to find out what we do not already know or 
to confirm or correct what we do know. Cer- 
tain things are revealed to us by the light of 
nature, or natural moral instincts; whatever 
harmonizes with these instincts and approves 
them may be lightly treated by the revelators, 
relying upon our own natures not to doubt 
them; but whatever is contrary to those 
natural convictions of mankind, and is utterly 
different from them, we must expect to be set 
down in a most unmistakable way. The 
natural feeling of men is that a sinner ought 
to suffer; but no one will say that we natu- 
rally think he ought to suffer forever. Hence, 

' Heb. X. 28. 

296 



HELL 

if God intends to convey to us the latter piece 
of information we shall find it plainly stated 
in such form as to leave no room for reason- 
able doubt. As, for instance, on the con- 
trary, the conviction of immortality is natural, 
and always in some form or other has been a 
belief of every religion; therefore Jesus says 
of this, *'If it were not so, I would have told 
you." ^ And we may well say that if He pur- 
posed to tell us that the wicked are to be 
eternally punished He would have told us 
explicitly. 

Taking up, then, our New Testament, and 
marking carefully all parts that bear upon 
the fate of the wicked, we are struck first of 
all by the fact that the article of faith in 
question — that is, that the wicked are to be 
shut up in a hell of torment forever after they 
die — is nowhere didactically, categorically 
stated in plain terms. If it is there, it is 
there not because Jesus or His apostles said 
so distinctly, but because of an interpretation 
we put upon their words. If we read those 
words with that idea in our minds to begin 
with, we shall indeed find not a few texts 
that agree with it, but the idea itself is not 
originally revealed in the Scriptures. And 
knowing as we do that all false religions 
reveled in hells for the torment of unbeliev- 

* John xiv. I. 

397 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

ers, we can readily see that the idea itself 
came into men*s minds from outside — that is, 
from heathen or rabbinical sources, and estab- 
lished itself in Christian theology by its 
remarkable agreement with certain figurative 
language in which the fate of the evil persons 
is spoken of. 

We are struck next with this feature of the 
language used in treating of this matter; that 
it consists in a variety of illustrations or figures^ 
such as Gehenna (the valley near Jerusalem 
where refuse was burned), an unquenchable 
fire, an undying worm, outer darkness where 
there is wailing and gnashing of teeth, ever- 
lasting fire prepared for the devil and his 
angels, or such woe as that it had been better 
had the man never been born.^ Now, com- 
mon sense at once tells us that these figures 
cannot all be literally true, for they are con- 
tradictory; and the only way in which they 
can be understood as true at all is to construe 
them as different illustrations of some one 
hidden reality. Furthermore, the God who 
inspired the Scriptures surely inspired the 
mode in which they convey information ; and 



' Gehenna, Matt. v. 22, 29; x. 28; xviii. 9, etc. Everlasting 
fire, Matt. xxv. 41. Fire that shall never be quenched, Mark ix. 
45, etc. Worm dieth not, Mark ix. 4<t-46 only. Outer darkness, 
Matt. viii. 12; xxii. 13; xxv. 30. Wailing and gnashing of teeth. 
Matt. xiii. 42. Fire prepared for the devil, xxv. 41. Better never 
been born, Mark xiv. 21. Tormented in flame, Luke xvi. 24. Lake 
of fire. Rev. xx. 14. Lake of fire and brimstone, Rev. xxi. 8. 
Second death. Rev. xxi. 8. 

298 



HELL 

it is evident that it was the manifest design 
of Jesus not to reveal the place where the 
wicked are to go, neither the details nor the 
duration of their suffering, but to conceal these 
very points^ while He disclosed the general 
nature of their fate. 

There can be no figures or symbols, how- 
ever, unless there is some reality to correspond 
with them. And the real fact that fits all 
these pictures is that to persist in evil will 
surely bring upon one boundless misery. Like 
a carcass in the Gehenna field of offal, he 
will cut himself off from the society of the 
good; his anguish will be such as can only be 
described by fire, outer darkness, weeping 
and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. No one 
can read the words of Jesus and the writings 
of Paul without gathering that the condition 
of those who neglect so great salvation is 
something infinitely tragic. Not only would 
Jesus not have used such lurid figures when 
He referred to the fate of the wicked, but 
He never would have been so terribly in 
earnest; He would not have so agonized in 
Gethsemane nor have so died upon Calvary, 
had not that fro7n which He came to save 
men been pitiable and revolting in the ex- 
treme. Because Jesus did not detail the cir- 
cumstances, fix the duration and locate the 
place of the evil ones after death, it is the 

399 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 



iti' 



most wretched perversion of a logical conclu- 
sion to hold that He did not at all say they 
were to suffer, or that He said they were to 
suffer lightly. 

But it may be said, all this is not the point 
at issue; we all agree that the wicked will 
suffer, but some of us contend that this suffer- 
ing is everlasting and some that it is not. To 
this the full and complete answer is that the 
Scriptures do not didactically state whether 
the suffering of the wicked will be endless or 
not. This is proved to common sense by the 
very fact that the controversy over this point 
has been so long waged. And as there is no 
criterion by which to settle religious con- 
troversy except the Scriptures, and as this 
dispute hinges upon differing interpretations 
of the Scriptures, there is very little prospect 
of its ceasing, unless it dies out from sheer 
exhaustion.^ In short, we do not know 
whether the wicked will persist in sin and sin's 
inevitable misery forever, and God never 
intended to tell us. 

It is a great fault with many that they 
think it an evidence of weakness to say, *'I 
do not know," whereas, it is as much a sign 
of accurate thought to clearly see what it is 
that you do not know, as it is to see what it is 

* As John Fiske says, upon another subject: "It is not that 
the question which once so sorely puzzled men has ever been set- 
tled, but that it has been outgrown. "-—Destiny of Man, p. i6. 

300 



HELL 

you do know. Many think they must either 
believe or disbelieve every point in religion; 
and as a consequence they range themselves 
upon one side of every question, as baptism, 
or bodily resurrection, or eternal punishment, 
and make up in partisan loyalty and contro- 
versial zeal what they lack in real information.^ 
For, as a matter of fact, we are called on to 
believe only what is so plainly revealed that 
we know what it means. Belief without intel- 
ligence IS intellectual prostitution; it is not 
belief, it is blind mental partisanship. As for 
what is not revealed we are not called upon 
either to believe or disbelieve ; we are, if we 
wish to be honest, to say frankly we do not 
know, and to hold our judgment in suspense 
awaiting reliable information. This is the 
kind of agnosticism Christian people ought to 
cultivate; without it our sincerity will always 
be justly suspected. 

Those, therefore, who say they believe the 
wicked will persist forever in evil, are wise 
above what is written. And yet one does not 
feel like utterly condemning this class, because 
the motive of their belief is a just and good 
motive. It springs not from cruelty, nor is it 
because they are fond of their belief, but it 
arises from the profound conviction of the 
exceeding sinfulness of sin; they do not wish 

* In the same way they also take up political beliefs. 

301 



<' 

)' 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

in any slightest degree to countenance the 
heresy that a man can be wicked and ever be 
anything else than unhappy. Their belief, 
then, receives the strength of their whole 
consent, not because God has so plainly 
revealed this point, but because they fear the 
consequences of any other belief, as they are 
under the mistaken impression that if they 
do not believe this they z?^«^/ disbelieve it, not 
perceiving that their true position is to simply 
say they do not know. 

But there are few greater errors than to 
allow our belief in the truth to be in any wise 
shaped by our hope or fears of the conse- 
quences of the truth. This is quite sure to 
lead us astray. It is, really, a subtle doubt 
as to the morality of truth itself, and as such 
it is a doubt of God's goodness; for God is 
truth. It is putting out our hand to stay the 
ark. It is presumptuous; and when we come 
squarely to look at it, it is absurd. For the 
consequences of truth are not our affair; they 
are God's concern. All we are to do is to 
ascertain the truth as nearly as we can, and, 
having found out what is truth, then to be- 
lieve it, knowing well that it is good. Truth 
does not need our assistance. We are not to 
fly, with our rash and unfounded self-made 
beliefs, to the aid of the eternal truth. There- 
fore, whatever may be the effect, let us man- 

302 



HELL 

fully say we know not, when we do know 
not; and let us further assure our hearts that 
the consequences of leaving this matter unre- 
vealed will surely be good^ or else God would 
not have left it so. **He doeth all things 
well/' 

The converse is equally true. Those who 
insist that the wicked shall all be gathered 
into heaven are also wise above what is writ- 
ten. The Scriptures say not so; and they 
have elevated an inference of their own mind 
up to the level of God's revelation. Just like 
the other class they, too, are rushing to the 
defense of God, as though He needed defense. 
As the others think they vindicate God's jus- 
tice, so these think they vindicate God's love. 
Surely both these parties are like Job's 
friends, of whom it is written: *'Then the 
Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, 
and said: Who is this that darkeneth counsel 
by words without knowledge? Gird up thy 
loins now like a man, and answer thou Me; 
where wast thou when I laid the foundations 
of the earth? He that reproveth God, let 
him answer it!" ^ God certainly designed the 
future for all men, both good and bad, to be 
hidden, as far as place, duration, and circum- 
stance are concerned; and He intended only 
to make known the general law that the results 

* Job xxxviii. 1-4; xl. 2. 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

of the life of Christ will be glorious beyond 
dreams, and the results of rejecting Christ 
will be the most terrible thing that can pos- 
sibly befall. And who are we that we ''add 
to the words of the Book/' ^ for fear enough 
is not written? 

This view, that of candid ignorance upon 
the ultimate fate of men, is perfectly con- 
sistent with the general order of Providence 
as we observe it in this life. If that order is to 
be reversed, we may reasonably expect to find 
that fact unmistakably declared; but we do 
not find this. No man knows what the mor- 
row will bring forth. 

" Heaven hides from all the book of fate, 
All but the page prescribed, the present date." 

It is under such conditions God created man ; 
intending him to use the present and to leave 
the future in his Maker's hands. The laws 
which govern the future He makes plain, as 
that goodness brings future peace, and evil 
future trouble; but the kind of peace or 
trouble, the circumstances or the exact duration^ 
He does not disclose. Such is the nature of 
His moral government. And why think we 
it will be all different beyond the grave? We 
have a right to infer that it will be the same; 
the burden of proof rests upon those who 
insist that it will be changed. 

* Rev. xxii. i8. 

304 



HELL 

We find, then, that the New Testament 
reveals a fact^ which is figuratively stated by 
Christ, and purposely so stated by Him as to 
preclude common sense from taking Him 
literally. Christ's method was story and pic- 
ture. Paul's method was round, downright, 
didactic statement; and hence in Paul we find 
the fact definitely stated to which Christ 
poetically referred — to wit, that ''God will 
render unto them that do not obey the truth, 
indignation and wrath, tribulation and 
anguish ; and to every soul that doeth good, 
glory, honor, and peace, '' ^ and that He will 
do this *'in the day of revelation of the right- 
eous judgment of God." That does not 
necessarily mean the commonly held day of 
judgment, but the day or time when the 
righteous character of God's arrangements 
appear;^ for now wicked men often seem happy 
and good men wretched. His laws seem so 
unequal that many a fool thinks to be suc- 
cessful by defying them, but by and by it is 
absolutely certain that they will see that sin 
brings woe, and goodness joy, and that is *'the 
day of the revelation of God's righteous judg- 
ment. "^ When that is to occur no one 

* Rom. ii. 6-9. 

' "Exposure, detection, disgrace; this is the worst part of 
punishment. But what can any exposure be in this world, to the 
revelations which may come hereafter when the secrets of all 
hearts shall be revealed?"— James Freeman Clarke. 

» Rom, 11. 5, 

305 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

knows, *'no, not even the angels of God, but 
only the Father.*'^ 

All along the course of time men have been 
setting dates for God, and He has been dis- 
appointing them. If there is anything mani- 
fest in sacred history it is this law that God 
will bring His servants to joy and reward and 
the wicked to confusion, but also that He 
specifically reserves the method and time of so 
doing ia His own counsel.^ Abraham, Moses, 
and the other Old Testament saints, ''all 
these died, not having received the prom- 
ises*' ^ — that is, the promises were not fulfilled 
as they thought they would be, but in a better 
way. And the apostles and early Christians 
fully expected Christ'r bodily return to earth, 
but while Christ has returned as a spiritual 
power, they were certainly mistaken if they 
believed that He would return in bodily glory 
in their day.* 

Let us therefore leave the places and other 
details of the future life where Jesus left 
them — in God's hands. To say it is not 
enough to let the matter remain so indefinite 
is to distrust God. "Take no thought for 
the morrow." Live right to-day and God is 
pledged for a bright to-morrow. But it may 

* Matt. xxiv. 36. 

' See the case of Jonah— Jonah ii. 10; iii, i. 
' Heb. xi. 39. 

* F. W. Robertson's sermon on "The Illusiveness of Life" 
beautifully expands this thought. 

306 



HELL 

be said, the future states are great incentives 
to right lives. That they are such is true; 
yet it is not the fancies^ but the facts of those 
states that are /r<?/<?r incentives; th: facts are 
woe and joy, the fancies are the place, time, 
and circumstances of that woe and joy. 

A similar question is that of whether the 
heathen will be *'saved'* or not. This ques- 
tion is half removed when we recall the Scrip- 
ture sense of salvation, which is not that of 
taking a man to a place called heaven. The 
other half of the question is removed when 
we remember that God's design in revelation 
was not at all to impart any information 
except such as bears upon the character and 
fate of those to whom the Bible is addressed. 
Now, the Bible is addressed, of course, only 
to its readers; it has absolutely nothing to say 
of the fate of others. It tells me my duty 
and destiny; and when I look within it to find 
the duty and destiny of any one else it only 
says: **What is that to thee2 Follow thou 
Me!** ^ In other words, the Book of God does 
not impart purely speculative information; 
never gratifies mere curiosity. The fate of 
the heathen in the next world is distinctly 
none of our affair; God will attend to them. 
Those who say the heathen will all be damned 
because they did not believe, having never 

* John xxi. 22. 

307 



Hi 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

heard, and also those who say the heathen 
will all be saved because God is good, are 
alike wise above what is written. The ^rue 
belief is that we do not know what will take 
place between them and their Father here- 
after; but we do know that their joy will be 
increased to an infinite degree both in this 
and the next life if we impart to them this 
grace of God*s transforming influence we have 
received. The "nerve of missions,'* their 
motive, is not to hasten to save lost souls from 
the wrath of an angry God, but rather to 
hasten to impart unto them eternal life, be- 
cause we love them as Christ loved us. 

The case stands very much the same with 
the dispute concerning a second probation. 
Neither those who contend for this nor those 
who deny it can find a clear line of Scriptural 
teaching substantiating their position. And 
from this it is manifest that God did not 
intend for us to know. If He had, He would 
have told us. The importance of the present 
life is by Holy Writ impressed upon us by the 
fact that the future is unknown. That is 
God's way. Deeming that insufficient, we 
make haste to add our conclusions and infer- 
ences to the body of revelation ; therefore to 
our theological fray has been * 'added all the 
plagues written in the Book.'* * 

* Rev. xxii. 18. 

308 



HELL 

But the view here stated will be met by two 
protests. One class of persons will say: 
**What! shall a man be given to understand 
that he may have hope, if he dies in his sins?*' 
This class is properly jealous for God's justice, 
and suspicious of any form of doctrine that 
may contain the least implication that the re- 
jection of Christ is not a fatal and dangerous 
thing. The other class will say: "What! shall 
we mourn by the coffin of our friend, who 
never had the Gospel strongly, attractively, 
and clearly put to him, as for one eternally 
damned?" This class is properly jealous for 
God's kindness. Let us answer both. 

And first: Is there any ground of hope for 
one who dies in his sins? The supposition is 
that if such hope is entertained, it will lead 
men presumptuously to put off accepting 
Christ until the next life. Now we must be 
again reminded that death has no moral sig- 
nificance. Death as an event eternally set- 
tling and irrevocably fixing the moral condi- 
tion of man is not clearly and unmistakably 
taught in the Scriptures. The idea is an out- 
growth of that artificial Latin theology that 
made as much of the "last things"; exalting 
to an unwarranted significance the "day of 
judgment" and heaven as a place. It was 
not the idea of Jesus and the apostles to use 
the fear of death as an inducement for men to 

309 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

accept the Gospel. They taught it is fatal for 
a man to be in his sins, to live in them. If to 
die in sin was to be irrevocably lost, that cer- 
tainly is a fact of most supreme and horrible 
importance, and Jesus and Paul could in no 
wise be excused for not stating it over and 
over again. But they did not so state it ; we 
gather the doctrine from their allusions^ and 
from single texts invariably selected from their 
course of argument or narrative about some- 
thing else. For instance, the parable of the 
ten virgins^ is explicitly said to relate to the 
destruction of Jerusalem, and the parable in 
Luke where those who knocked were refused 
admittance^ contains no hint that the shut- 
ting of the door is death; and only in par- 
ables does this idea^ occur even this much, 
never in Christ's didactic teaching. The 
author of Hebrews says: *'As it is appointed 
unto man once to die, and after that the 
judgment**;* but the gist of his argument is 
not that he is proving that man has only one 
trial, but that Jesus as the divine Lamb 
needed only once to die in order to perfect 
the remission of sins. It is not sound sense 

' ** Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten vir- 
gins," etc., Matt. XXV. i. 

* Luke xiii. 25-30. 

* That is, the idea of the time when the punishment of the 
wicked is to take place. 

* Heb. ix. 27. The gist of the argument, in which this passage 
occurs, is: As a man has but one life, even so he needs but one 
sacrifice to purify that life. 

310 



HELL 

to elevate these and similar illustrations, 
which are by-remarks, into a doctrine of the 
most fatal importance. 

But, it will be objected, this opens the 
flood-gates to presumptuous sin; unless we 
teach that death is the fatal mark beyond 
which is no chance, unless it is only '*while 
the lamp holds out to burn*' that **the vilest 
sinner may return," the Gospel is simply 
powerless; the strongest motive is gone. To 
which it may be said that this is the wrong 
state of mind entirely in which to approach 
the study of truth; we should inquire solely 
what is truth, not what will be the effects of 
truth. If the views here given are correct 
and Scriptural, then it is God that we impeach ; 
if not correct, then we should show that they 
are not Scriptural^ and not that we think them 
dangerous. 

But the fact is that they are not dangerous. 
The only difference between the doctrine here 
stated and that commonly held by vulgar the- 
ology is that this doctrine tends to alarm 
the sinner by a Scriptural fear of entering the 
future state an alien from God to face the 
unknown consequences of his sins, which 
the Scriptures only say will be *'a fearful 
thing*' ;^ while that doctrine ^^^^ human infer- 
ences to divine fact, and seeking by adventi- 

» Heb. X. 31. 

3" 



fh' 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

tious aids to frighten the sinner, loses its force 
and brings itself into contempt. The one is 
biblical, reasonable, and germane to what we 
know of the orderly processes and methods of 
God; the other is extra-biblical, unreason- 
able, and artificial. 

If, however, a sane view of the Bible sweeps 
away the traditional pictures of Paradise Lost 
and Dante's Inferno, at the same time it de- 
stroys the unfounded hope of those who 
"believe*' in a future probation. If God had 
intended us to know that in the life to come 
we should have another opportunity. He cer- 
tainly would have so stated. The Gospel 
plants no flag of hope over a sinner's grave. 
If we believe in a second trial, we are believ- 
ing our own ideas, not God's. The dying, 
unrepentant sinner who expects his Maker to 
take him into bliss, is trusting utterly to a 
vagary of his own mind, and has not one 
promise of his Father upon which to stand as 
he enters the unknown life beyond. 

So, then, we find both parties wrong for the 
same one reason ; they stand on the same false 
premise, conceiving salvation to be chiefly an 
affair after death, and the sorrow or joy of 
the soul then to turn upon the place whither 
they are to go. Let us therefore erase all 
these unfounded speculations and curious 
inquiries, and see if there be not a reasonable 

312 



HELL 

idea of the sorrows of the wicked, see if there 
be not an idea that harmonizes both with 
what we here observe of the operation of 
natural law and with the general tone and 
drift of the Scriptures. 

The nature of sin is well known. It is at 
first pleasant, but as it progresses the pleas- 
ure decreases and the attendant difficulties 
and sorrows increase. The human spirit is 
so constructed that it can be permanently and 
increasingly happy only as it obeys the law of 
its being; that law is that it shall know God 
and live -under His influence. The evil of the 
lust of the flesh, John says, is that it 
''passes. '*^ The soul is a son of God, with 
all the eternal desires and boundless needs of 
its Father. Fed upon aught else than God, it 
writhes at length in divine hunger pains. 
One does not have to die to be in hell. Grant 
him five hundred years of life, with unwasting 
powers of body and mind, and he will run 
through the gamut of all that earth can give 
to satisfy within at least one hundred years; 
the last four hundred will be more and more 
filled with ennui, disgust, wretchedness, and 
at last a very hate of life and despair of joy.^ 
To insure perpetual hunger deprive a man of 
nutritious food, and so long as he lives he will 

* •* And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he 
that doeth the will of God abideth forever." i John ii. 17. 

' As in the case of Solomon. See Eccl. ii. i-ii. 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

suffer; so pain will last so long as a soul is 
deprived of God, after the artificial stimulants 
of sin's pleasures have lost their effect. Death 
has nothing to do with it; for as long as the 
soul lives apart from God, whether on this or 
another planet, it will be wretched.^ If the 
unrepentant sinner is immortal, his sufferings 
will be immortal. 

But when the sinner finds, in the next 
world, that he suffers, will he not turn to God 
for pardon, and will God not forgive him? 
In answer to this, we can only say that there 
is nothing in the Bible by which we are war- 
ranted in believing that God will not freely 
pardon at any time any one who asks, that 
He would not even pardon Satan were he to 
repent. But we must not forget what God's 
pardon is; it is not a removal from His books 
of a sentence against us, not an artificial and 
statutory thing; but it is His entrance into a 
man by His influence and thus cleansing him, 
in which work the man must be willing and 
cooperate. And the reason why there is no 
ground to believe the wicked will turn to God 
in the life to come is not the artificial fixity 
of state imparted by death, but it is the nature 
of man himself. It is not the unwillingness 
of God, but the character of the sinner that 

* ** Fecisti nos ad te, Domine; et inquietum est cor nostrum 
donee requiescat in te. "—Augustine (Thou hast made us for 
Thyself, Lord ; and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee.) 

3H 



HELL 

holds no hope of future pardon. For sin is 
cumulative in its nature. Doing one wrong 
prepares us to do another. Rejecting God*s 
influence makes us more prone still to reject 
it. It is of the very nature of sin that it 
'* waxes worse and worse.*' ^ 

We find this made plain by what we know 
of wicked men here. Go among the depraved 
and criminal classes; you will find misery 
enough, and squalor, wretchedness, and 
disease ; but do these things operate to lead 
them to a pure life? Do they make their vic- 
tims fly to the company of the good and pure? 
On the contrary, they breed only further 
despair and transgression, and morbidly 
inflame the propensities to evil; and these 
classes even give their sufferings as an excuse 
for their crimes^ instead of looking upon them 
as reasons for forsaking crimes.^ There is 
nothing redemptive in sin. Stripes and woe 
never regenerated a rogue^ although they 
may have made him more careful as to the 
methods of his rascality. If such be the 
effects of evil and evil's punishment here^ how 
can we look for any different effects hereafter? 

What does regenerate a bad man? Love, 
hope, self-respect; and these impulses are 
aroused in him by God in Christ and in 

* 2 Tim. iii. 13. 

* The bad heart produces bad surroundings which in turn tend 
to further deprave the heart. 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

Christly men. Now, the almost inevitable 
consequence of sin is to destroy the very 
belief in purity and goodness. He doubts 
such things exist; or if he believes in them, 
he does not believe they can ever reach him- 
self. Thus it is that the continuance in sin 
tends to block the only avenue of escape. 
The influence of God alone can save him; he 
closes against that influence more every day; 
and there is no ground whatever for believing 
that in the next world he will be different from 
what he is in this. If here he looks on Chris- 
tian men and pure women as either hypocrites, 
or uninteresting, colorless weaklings, doubt- 
less he will there continue in the same persua- 
sion. Therefore, we are justified in thinking 
it extremely probable that the man who per- 
sists in sins here until death will persist in 
them after death, and of course his sufferings 
will last as long as his sin. 

The two future states of joy and of misery 
do not depend upon an arbitrary decree of 
God, given for no reason that we can see 
except His own will, but they are consequent 
upon the very nature of the case. The law 
of the punishment of sin is not a law which is 
riQ:Iit simply because God says so, but it is a 
law just as gravitation is a law, working in 
the constitution and nature of things. Do we 
complain because it hurts us when we put our 

316 



HELL 

hand in the fire, or that no one believes us 
after we have told many lies? These laws are 
not whimsical verdicts of a great judge, but 
flow naturally along the course of reason ; so 
likewise flows the law that he who has the life 
of the Son of God in him ascends from glory 
to glory in his career, here and hereafter, 
while he who has not this life descends more 
and more into the deeps of wretchedness, 
emptiness, and distress. 

Why, then, did not God make all men so 
they could be no otherwise than happy? 
Simply because He is good. To make His 
laws so that a bad man can forever be happy, 
would show Him to be a bad God. A moral 
being, a good man, could not look up to such 
a God as his ideal. The very nature of 
thought implies that if obedience and truth 
are to gain happiness, disobedience and wrong 
must merit unhappiness, else there is no moral 
distinction between the two. If both good 
and evil inherit the kingdom of God, then 
that kingdom is not a moral one. To efface 
the effects of good and evil is to efface all 
good and evil themselves, and also to efface 
the distinction between them. 

But why did God make men capable of evil, 
and so of suffering? If He made them ca- 
pable of being sons of God, He must have 
made them also capable of refusing to be 

317 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

sons. If God made man at all^ a being able 
to love Him of his own free will, it follows 
by the very nature of thought that He must 
have made man able to refuse to love Him. 
Otherwise man would simply have been a 
machine or a beast; for if he moves by will^ 
he must be able to refuse by will. 

But will God allow the major part of the 
race to thus persist in evil? To think so 
would be to limit the power of God*s influ- 
ence. As there is nothing in the nature of 
sin to warrant us in believing the impenitent 
sinner will ever be converted hereafter; so 
also there is nothing in the nature of God and 
His li7nitless resources to warrant us in believ- 
ing that a large number of His sons will con- 
tinue forever in sin and alienation from Him. 
But we must always bear in mind that both of 
these convictions are from our own reasoning — 
what God will actually do we must leave to 
Him, for He has not chosen to tell us. 

Above all things we should never forget 
that there is no spirit of retaliation in God 
corresponding to our own feeling represented 
by that word. He is always and ever kind, 
just, and forbearing. The Old Testament 
figures of speech of God's vengeance, His 
whetting His sword. His fury, and the like, 
are widened and elevated by Christ's teach- 
ings and His personality, which show that 

318 



HELL 

while the old prophets correctly apprehended 
the fact of the woe awaiting the wicked, they 
did not understand the spirit of that fact. 
We must clear away from our minds, along 
with much other theological rubbish, the 
notion that God has the slightest vindictive- 
ness in His disposition. When it is said He 
will punish the wicked we know that He can- 
not inflict injury upon them merely to gratify 
a passion of resentment.^ We know this, be- 
cause surely Jesus was a perfect representa- 
tion of God, and in Jesus we find no such 
feeling. He had that spirit which beareth 
all things, hopeth all things, and endureth all 
things, which returns good for evil. If He 
spake harshly to the Pharisees, He only 
warned them of the fate they were bringing 
upon themselves^ and never showed the slight- 
est sign of bringing injury upon them in return 
for their treatment of Him.^ To suppose that 
He was acting as He did, all the while intend- 
ing some day to return and pay back His per- 
secutors in full vengeance, rejoicing in their 
burnings because they had offended Him; to 
suppose Him praying upon the cross for the 
Father to forgive them, and yet harboring a 

* Vengeance, ekdikesis, means primarily vindication. God 
will show to the sinner and to all that the apparent prosperity of 
evil was a delusion and a snare. 

' The pomt is, that while, as the Mover of universal law, He 
will bring upon them calamity, yet He will not do so as a Person 
seeking to sate His ire. 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MO RROW 

plan of future retaliation — such suppositions 
have only to be put into words for us to see 
how absurd they are. When the Scriptures 
speak of divine '*wrath*' and ''punishment," 
these terms must be understood in the full 
light of all that Jesus said and did and was. 
"No Scripture is of private interpretation**; 
that is, all texts must be read in their relation 
to the whole. And, above all, no one can 
understand the Bible without reading it in the 
spirit of Jesus. No text must be received 
apart from the light His face sheds upon it. 
His character and personality are a qualifica- 
tion upon every word of the Book. 

This being true we are sure that the suffer- 
ings of the wicked will in the next world be 
viewed by the Deity in no spirit of gratifica- 
tion arising from glutted resentment; but He 
will view them there, as Jesus did here, with 
infinite sorrow and sympathy. His judgment 
will be just, tender, and merciful. If any 
suffer, it will be because for them suffering is 
the best, wisest, most beneficent thing that 
can happen. God does not hate sinners; He 
loves them, and will love them to the end. If 
there be souls in hell, He loves them also; for 
His love plays upon all. If they continue 
there in sin and sin's torment, it will be only 
because His infinite and ever-present loving 

' 2 Pet. i. 20. 

320 



HELL 

Spirit can find no opening in hearts shut and 
barred against Him. Over against the abode 
of lost souls stands not a furious and venge- 
ful Monarch; but a pitiful Father, echoing 
His own cry upon earth: "O Jerusalem, Jeru- 
salem, thou that killest the prophets and 
stonest them which are sent unto thee, how 
often would I have gathered thy children to- 
gether, even as a hen gathereth her chickens 
under her wings, and ye would not!'' 

The sum of what has been here said, there- 
fore, is that God has simply revealed that the 
reception of the Christ-Spirit's influence into 
the soul sets it upon an order of life increas- 
ingly joyous and full of glory, and that the 
neglect or refusal to receive this influence 
results in increasing emptiness, distress, and 
woe. Whether or not the wicked will eter- 
nally continue in sin, and hence in sin's sor- 
row; where they will go to; what is the 
nature of their torment; how long it will con- 
tinue; whether or not they will repent and be 
saved after death ; whether they are inherently 
immortal or will eventually be annihilated — 
all these are speculations^ and form no part of 
the distinct divine revelation; we may think 
as we choose about them, provided we do no 
elevate our opinions into divine decrees. 
And, mainly, whatever sorrow comes upon the 
evil ones is the direct, natural result of their 

321 



li 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

own deeds and character, and not an arbitrary 
or statutory infliction of penalty by an 
incensed Judge. 

When we penetrate into the reason and 
ground of this revelation, and ask why God 
did not clearly show us the heavenly mansions 
and horrid pits the good and bad respectively 
are to inhabit, we shall see that this reason 
and ground lies in the fact that the motive 
power by which the Gospel proposes to save 
men is not the hopes and fears of rewards and 
punishments, but God's own personal influ- 
ence. If heaven and hell were to be our 
incentives, surely God would have set the one 
shining invitingly in the sky and the other 
burning terribly and openly upon earth, where 
we could all see them. Why has He removed 
them to the distance, veiled them, only 
alluded to them in figures of speech? The 
profound reason is that what is done for pay 
can only affect conduct, but not character. 
Expectation of reward or fear of stripes may 
regulate, but cannot develop man. Now, as 
we have said, the manifest intent of God is 
not to coerce us into any form of conduct, 
else His whole dealings with mankind are a 
stupendous failure. Neither is it to rescue 
us out of one place into another place, for if 
this is His plan, it has succeeded poorly, for 
only a small fragment of the race has been 

322 



HELL 

saved in the orthodox sense. But the reason- 
able supposition is that His design is to de- 
velop, uplift, and finally ennoble men to be 
His sons; and toward this end all history 
tends. 

" One God, one law, one element, 
And one divine, far-off event 
To which the whole creation moves." 

Now, this sort of an object can only be 
attained by a change in the whole character 
of man. His very nature must be regenerated. 
This, in turn, can only be accomplished by a 
potent influence — to wit, the influence of 
God. If, every time we sin, bodily pain would 
strike us at once, we would develop a right 
instinct, but not a right character. When we 
sin we see a possibility of temporary pleasure 
in it, and we are thrown back upon our prin- 
ciple and intelligent reflection to find the 
power that shall restrain us from it. Because 
the Ruler of men allows the wicked to prosper 
and the righteous to suffer for a time, drives 
mankind to discover and act upon the great 
underlying laws and principles of action. By 
so doing we are not trained to be oxen, keep- 
ing the road because we know that to turn 
aside means a blow af the whip, but we are 
educated to rely upon ourselves. Thus the 
individual conscience is developed, for we 
would need no conscience if rewards and pun- 

323 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

ishments were immediate and certain. The 
will is trained, for an open and apparent hell 
and heaven would render the will unnecessary. 
The judgment is strengthened, for the judg- 
ment would have no scope if calamity came 
swift and sure for every misdeed. Therefore 
we perceive that the ^^v^ perplexity we so cry 
out against, the ostensible frequent success of 
evil and apparent failure of good temporarily, 
is purposely ordained by a Father who would 
raise up sons to be manly and self-reliant. 
*'Thy gentleness hath made me great.'* And 
we further perceive that the veiling of the 
future state is of His design who would have 
us learn to do right because we have right 
characters, and not because of hope and fear. 
Hope and fear, to be sure, are partial aids, 
and so the objects of hope and fear z.r^ par- 
tially revealed; but they are not to be the 
principal motive, and so the future states are 
not explicitly shown. 

The chief, main, dominant motive for right 
life is to be the presence of God in our midst, 
the influence of His personality upon us. So, 
also, the chief agent to keep us from sin is to 
be the revulsion toward and hatred of sin 
because of its antipathy toward God and that 
character which God*s personal influence 
works in us. If heaven and hell were set 
forth in the Book of God's revelation as dis- 

324 



I 



HELL 

tinctly as they are drawn by traditional the- 
ology, they would largely interfere with and 
set aside the operation of God's influence. 

Therefore we conclude, that as God's pur- 
pose is to develop His sons into the right kind 
of life, and not to drive nor bribe slaves into 
a certain future city. He has declined the use 
of rewards and punishments as a main incen- 
tive, revealing them only as general divine 
laws, and in Jesus Christ has substituted, as a 
better motive. His own personal influence. 
Reward and punishment constitute the very 
heart and motive of the law, but of the Gos- 
pel Jesus Christ is the heart and motive — 
Jesus Christ, '*who is made, not after the law 
of a carnal commandment, but after the power 
of an endless life. For the former command- 
ment has been disannulled because of its 
impotency and unprofitableness, for it devel- 
oped nothing to perfection; but the bringing 
in of a better hope did, by the which we draw 
nigh unto God. For if that first covenant (of 
rewards and punishments) had been effective, 
a second would have been unnecessary. But, 
finding fault with the former. He saith. Behold 
the days come, saith the Lord, when I will 
make a new covenant, enter upon different 
relations, with My people; not according to 
the covenant that I made with them of old, 
when I led them out of Egypt, because they 

325 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

I 

I continued not in My covenant. But this is 

the new covenant, saith the Lord ; I will put 

J My laws into their mind, and write them in 

their hearts, and I will be to them an imma- 

^ ; nent God and they shall be to Me a people. 

And they shall not teach every man his neigh- 

I i bor, and every man his brother, saying, Know 

^■[ the Lord ; for they shall all know Me, from 

the least to the greatest. The law and its 

motives were a schoolmaster to bring us to 

V' Christ ; but now that He is come, we are no 

longer under a schoolmaster. Stand fast, 

I therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ 

; J hath made us free, and be not entangled again 

I ! with the yoke of bondage.*' ^ 

\ * Heb. vii. i6, 19; viii. 7-11 ; Gal. iii. 24, 25; v. i. 



326 



SUGGESTIONS 

Most theological disputes are settled by subsidence. 

It was not the purpose of the Bible to reveal the 
ultimate eternity, but the immediate eternity. 

It is as much a sign of intellectual accuracy to see 
clearly what it is that you do not know, as it is to see 
what it is you do know. 

Partisan zeal is usually in inverse proportion to in- 
formation. 

It is as much our duty to refuse either to believe or 
to disbelieve what is not revealed, as it is to believe 
the truth or to disbelieve error. 

Christian honesty is based upon a liberal supply of 
Christian agnosticism. 

Unless the Scriptures explicitly state the contrary, 
we have a right to assume God*s moral government 
will be the same in the next world as in this. 

Forever men set dates for God, and God disap- 
points them; but men have never discovered a law 
of God which He repudiates. 

The Bible is addressed only to them that read it. 

God is the only source of joy; to live apart from 
Him is hell. 

There is nothing redemptive in sin or its penalty. 

If the sufferings of the wicked do not make them 
turn to God here, we have no reason to believe their 
sufferings will make them turn hereafter. 

The hell of sin is that it destroys belief. 

Every text of Scripture must be read in the light 
of Christ's face. 

Rewards and punishments can regulate, but not 
regenerate. 



CHAPTER XII 

LIFE IN THE HEAVENS 
God's Personal Influence upon His Eternal Sons 



1 1 



'?! 



"Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
When a new planet swims into his ken; 
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes 
He stared at the Pacific, and all his men 
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise, 
Silent, upon a peak of Darien." 
Keats, On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer, 

" I should know that what I have said is truth, had 
I the confirmation of an oracle; but this I will affirm, 
that what I have said is the most likely to be true of 
anything I could say/' — Plato, Timceus, 

"When I consider Thy heavens, what is Man that 
Thou art mindful of him? "—David, Ps. viii. 3. 

" Beloved, now are we the Sons of God, and it doth 
not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that 
when He shall appear, we shall be like Him." — John, 
I John iii. 2. 



« 



CHAPTER XII 

If stress has been laid heretofore in this 
writing upon the erroneous views concerning 
the life hereafter, it is not to be supposed that 
the intention has been to minify the impor- 
tance of the hope of a glorious life beyond, 
nor in any way to mar the precious and tender 
anticipations of the joy there awaiting us. 
The imagination cannot possibly indulge in 
fancies so sweet that the reality itself will not 
be sweeter. But the error has been that 
many of those Scriptural expressions which 
were given to show us the beauties of a pres- 
ent life in Christ have been transferred to 
allude to a future existence. However, after 
removing from the life to come all those de- 
scriptions that more properly apply to a pres- 
ent Christian experience, there yet remain a 
sufficient number and quality of revelations 
concerning the home beyond the grave to 
convince us that it is indeed delightful above 
compare. This chapter is added, not only to 
trace the probable effects of the endless influ- 
ence of God upon undying spirits, but also to 
indicate a form of thought concerning our 

331 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

everlasting life that may be more consistent 
with common sense and the present state of 
our knowledge of the universe — a form, it is 
conceived, infinitely grander, more entran- 
cing, and more attractive than the old forms. 

It must always be kept in mind that all our 
speculations as to the career of the deathless 
soul in eternity are speculations merely, 
except that we know that if one is in Christ it 
will be well with him. We know that for the 
spirit of one who is Christ's there is a cer- 
tainty of joy beyond. The writer of this 
essay does not wish to commit the very mistake 
he criticises in others. 

The apostles were very careful not to 
indulge in any rhapsodies touching what they 
would do in the next world. Socrates allowed 
his fancy to run on before and depict the 
pleasure of his meeting with old friends and 
with great master minds; and many other 
philosophers and many uninspired religious 
teachers have composed the most interesting 
fictions concerning the unknown future. But 
the Bible writers confined themselves, as if 
under divine restraint, from any such fore- 
castings; and it is not unreasonable to pre- 
sume they thus abstained from what they 
would naturally be inclined to do, lest they 
should lead men to suppose their conjectures 
to be positive revelations of facts. Paul 

332 



LIFE IN THE HEAVENS 

speaks of the *'prize,'* the *'crown, *' the 
''rest," being "with the Lord/' and '*with 
Christ*'; but nowhere relates, for instance, 
how he expects to enter the golden city, and 
the house he is to live in, with its gardens 
and all such things. He alludes to being 
caught up in the air when the Lord shall 
appear, and otherwise describes with some- 
thing of detail Christ's second coming, but 
manifestly he did not mean what his words 
seem to make him mean — /. ^., that Jesus 
should appear in bodily glory in Paul's own 
lifetime; or else if he did mean that, we 
know he was mistaken. But we do not here 
discuss the second advent; the point is that 
all the circumstantial descriptions of final 
glory and wrath in the apostles' writings most 
probably are connected with the second com- 
ing of Christ, and not with the life of men 
after death. If there is an exception to this, 
it is in the Apocalypse; and of that book it 
needs only be said that the best scholarship 
and piety of the ages are still undecided as to 
its meaning. At least its holy city and river 
and tree of life and such incidents of descrip- 
tion are certainly sacred figures whose real 
contents are unknown, except that they por- 
tray things lovely and most pleasant. 

It may not be unnecessary to insist here 
that whatever the joys of heaven may be, 

333 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 



li they are not to depend upon the kind of place 

it is, but upon the kind of people in it. Wher- 

, ever there is a God-filled man there is heaven. 

If all men were like Jesus, this earth would 
^ j be as good a place as another in which to 

ij spend a million years. All God's places are 

/ ij^^ good; it is sin only that turns any of them 

7^ into a hell. Give me love and wisdom, my 

Master's presence, and the touch of one dear 

hand, and why should I care whether I walk 

golden streets or live upon this earthly ball? 

I And yet it is impossible to prevent men from 

I creating pictures of what is to come beyond 

j! I death; and such pictures are not only harm- 

I less, but they may be helpful, provided only 

, ' that we do not forget that they are hnt pictures 

of our own making, and provided that we do 
not get to pinning our hopes of happiness 
upon them instead of upon God. For that is 
the very essence of idolatry; to look for joy 
and help from any scenes or circumstances 
God gives us, instead of looking alone to 
Him. It is trusting in created things, not in 
the Creator. It is enough for us to know that 
we are to be "forever with the Lord.'* All 
other joys flow from that. We are to take all 
lesser pleasures simply on trust from Him. 
The reunion with friends, the bright scenes, 
and other delights, we know are safe in His 
keeping. The blessed assurance we have 

334 



LIFE IN THE HEAVENS 

upon our entrance into the unknown is that 
our Father's hand is in ours and that *'He 
will freely give us all things.'* If any think 
h s is too vague and colorless, they have the 
wrong spirit toward the Father. It is not His 
promises, nor what we think to be His prom- 
ises; it is He that our trust hangs upon. 

Keeping ever in mind, therefore, that all 
our theories concerning the circumstances of 
the next life are only attempts to give form 
to the general fact that we shall inherit su- 
preme joy because we are God's sons and 
joint heirs with Jesus, there is no harm, but 
there may be much real helpfulness, in imagin- 
ing the place and manner of our future life. 
Some fifty thousand human beings, it is said, 
go every hour as a colony from earth into the 
unknown.* It is of most absorbing interest to 
inquire whither they go; for they take with 
them the fondest love of us who are left be- 
hind ; they are still united to us by the ties of 
affection and friendship. Hitherto we have 
had two kinds of ideas concerning their desti- 
nation. One notion is that they go to some 
paradise or intermediate state, there to await 
the general resurrection. This view finds its 
support in bending many varied kinds of 
Scripture allusions to fit a preconceived the- 
ory of one great * 'general assizes" called 

» Dr. O. W. Holmes. 

335 



i 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

'*the day of judgment/' And this theory in 
turn sprang from the general idea of making 
salvation a getting safe into a place called 
heaven. But it is a mere supposition and 
arbitrary interpretation of indistinct texts to 
hold that God keeps all souls in waiting- 
rooms until a final great day, after which the 
present universe shall be destroyed and two 
new cities appear, called heaven and hell, 
into which respectively shall go the good and 
the bad. 

The second notion is that God, Christ, and 
the angels now live in a city or country called 
heaven, somewhere in the skies, and the souls 
of good men at death go to that place. These 
souls come out at "the day of judgment,'* but 
simply as a matter of form, for they receive 
the verdict of acquittal and immediately go 
back to their celestial residence. This view 
also rests upon literal interpretations of con- 
flicting prophetic imagery. 

It is to be regretted that one cannot put 
aside these notions without seeming to be 
indulging in wanton iconoclasm. They have 
so long been the set form of Christian thought 
that to intimate that they are incongruous 
and self-contradictory appears cruel. They 
have been embodied in some of the greatest 
literary masterpieces of the world. It is in 
the garb of these conceptions that Dante, 

336 



LIFE IN THE HEAVENS 

Milton, and Bunyan have spoken to the heart 
and hope of mankind. Many of our favorite 
hymns are filled with these figures of the 
truth; the **sweet and blessed country/* the 
'*sweet fields of Eden," the city whose ''glit- 
tering towers outshine the sun," and ''Jeru- 
salem, my happy home," are woven into the 
very fabric of our religious sentiment. And 
there is no necessity of tearing them out. 
One can still sing these songs and read these 
poems, with a full appreciation of the feeling 
they express; if he has not put them away by 
proving them false, if he feels that they are 
still deeply true at heart, that he has filled 
them full and run them over, if they are no 
longer large enough to contain the new con- 
ceptions of glory. They express the poetic 
genius of a former age seeking to embody in 
the words and visions of that time the thought 
about heaven. It seems, therefore, that the 
time is ripe for a new poet, who shall bathe 
his wing in higher fields of ether than were 
known to Milton or Dante, who shall express 
the enlarged outlook of our time, even as 
they expressed the narrow outlook of theirs : 
just as we need a new Pilgrim's Progress that 
shall narrate the adventures of Christian, not 
running away from a lost world to a holy 
refuge in the sky, but running after the world 
to save it and bring it to his own abounding 

337 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

heavenly life. The kind of concepts in which 
such a poet might indulge I shall endeavor to 
outline — a heaven of heavens infinitely more 
sublime than the holy city of mediaeval 
thought. 

There are some who cannot hear without 
alarm of any change in our religious ideas. 
If the Bible is true, they say, it must be fixed. 
If there be any change, it must be away from 
the set and unalterable truth of Holy Writ. 
Now, our belief in the Bible is indeed a fixed 
thing, unchanging; yet the degree to which we 
understand the Bible must always enlarge with 
our growth in knowledge. If the Bible is a 
revelation of God, it is not fixed behind us, 
but before us. We are growing up to it. As 
our knowledge of science and the laws of 
nature increase, our interpretation of Bible 
revelations will alter, and we may be sure 
that if the advance of intelligence brings us 
nearer the truth of God in nature our new 
interpretations of God in the Book must be 
also nearer the truth. Instead of the increase 
of knowledge, with the progress of the race, 
impoverishing and limiting the ideas which 
we gain from God's Book, on the contrary it 
expands them to a remarkable extent. Our 
present world-view, due to the results of sci- 
entific research, gives to the language of Holy 
Writ meanings of which the prophets and 

338 



LIFE IN THE HEAVENS 

writers themselves, doubtless, in many cases, 
were but little aware. **When I consider Thy 
heavens," sings the Psalmist, **what is man 
that Thou art mindful of him?" But the 
insignificance of man compared with the stu- 
pendous universe, which the sacred poet here 
intended to depict, is how much more strik- 
ing in this day, when telescopes range the sky 
and reveal, beyond and above those hosts of 
heaven that were visible to the Hebrew of 
old, seas upon seas of worlds and systems 
of worlds fading away into infinite distance ! 
Thus has science crowded the sacred writer's 
phrase with newer and truer meanings, hints 
and analogies, of which he never dreamed. 
So geology has stretched the six creative days 
of Genesis from a poor, theatric display of 
artificial power into a sublime drama of divine 
action, covering aeons of time, moving with the 
measured tread of unhasting law, rising with 
the majestic dignity of a godlike growth. A 
word with a small meaning at the date of its 
utterance may be enlarged to become a most 
momentous expression by the discoveries of 
the explorers. Such a word is *'the world*'; 
for when the Master said, "God so loved the 
world," how limited was the notion conveyed 
to the disciples' minds and with how vague 
edges of distant barbarous lands! But now not 
only have millions of Chinese and islanders 

339 



♦./ 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

and North Americans been ushered into its 
contents, but also the whole concept of **the 
world" has been unified and woven together. 
All this leads up to and illustrates the alter- 
ation necessary in our views of the life beyond. 
We believe as truly in heaven, and accept the 
symbols of it as given by the New Testament 
writers as implicitly as did Bernard of Cluny 
when he wrote of "those halls of Zion con- 
jubilant with song,*' but we are compelled to 
abandon many of the conventional trappings 
and appurtenances which he and those of his 
time deemed essential. What helped them 
hinders us in getting a helpful view of the 
future life. When all thought the earth ;o be 
flat and the sky to be its star-punctured semi- 
spherical cover, they could only conceive of 
heaven as one place, a city or land on the 
other side of this lid, and they supposed that 
some day the city would come down through 
the blue canopy to receive us. Thus did they 
understand the mystic poetry of the Revelator, 
and thus only perhaps could they understand 
it. But we know now there is no such lid. A 
heaven becomes the heavens. The canopy, 
on being approached with a lens, extends 
away into measureless reaches of space. We 
must adopt a new form for our thought, or 
stultify our own intelligence. Is it possible to 
find such a form which shall be as true to 

340 



LIFE IN THE HEAVENS 

Scriptural imagery as was the old, and at the 
same time square with our present knowledge 
of the universe? In order to indicate such a 
form, let us assume, merely as an hypothesis, 
some such theory as this: 

The earth is the breeding -ground from whence 
God intends to populate the whole universe. After 
death the soul goes to that place God has prepared 
as its home. This, in brief, in our present 
state of knowledge, seems a rational view of 
the future estate. Let us examine into its 
reasonableness. 

And first, let us ask ourselves why God 
made so vast a system of worlds. Of course, 
we can never fully know God's counsel, but 
as His sons we are justified in studying His 
deeds. Knowing God, as we do in Jesus, we 
know Him to be a sentient, loving person- 
ality. Jesus taught us to call Him Father. 
Now, if He be a Father, His sons are dearer 
to Him than all His possessions. A mechanic 
takes pride in the locomotive or watch that is 
the product of his skill; but more does he 
care for his little child, and he only makes 
his handiwork for his child's sake. So God, 
looking abroad upon all the immense and 
inconceivably great works of His hands, *'the 
moon and the stars which He has ordained," 
still would say, ''The Lord's portion is His 
people." Rather would He destroy them all, 

34^ 




THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

wondrous as they be, than that any harm 
thereby come to *' one of these little ones.'* 
If men are the sons of God, destined in the 
ages of the future to become '''like Him^'' then 
He surely could not have made the universal 
frame for any better reason than to furnish 
dwelling-places for His children. The mighti- 
est works of the Creator are none too fine for 
the use of them that have a right to look up 
and say, *'Our Father, which art in the 
I heavens."* 

I It may be objected that such a view gives 

j an unwarranted importance to man. Infi- 

delity, curiously enough, makes two criticisms 
upon the Christian scheme: one, that it makes 
man too small, humiliates and prostrates him; 
the other, that it makes him too large, occu- 
pying too much of the Almighty's care; 
which two criticisms we might quietly leave 
to devour each other. But size has nothing to 
do with importance. Because a man only 
weighs a hundred pounds is no reason for 
saying he is not worth more than a planet 
weighing a trillion pounds or so. A father 
standing by the bedside of a dying baby would 
give all his broad acres and monster build- 
ings for the life of that little fragment of 
human flesh and spirit. Even so the great 
cities are insignificant as compared with the 

* The word is plural in the Greek. 

342 



LIFE IN THE HEAVENS 

humanity that built and inhabits them. Man 
is not the largest of the animals, yet has he 
''dominion over every living thing"; the lion 
and the elephant flee before his face. Worth 
is to be measured by soul and intellect. It 
is *'the spirit in man*' that endues him with 
such importance. 

We rarely suspect what is implied by en- 
dowing man with immortality. As an unend- 
ing being man must have something unending 
with which to employ his energy. God has 
provided him here with two things to do which 
meet this requirement: the first is to complete 
God's unfinished work, the second is to study 
it; and these two tasks would be exactly that 
which would furnish him hereafter with an 
inviting career. We find here that the Cre- 
ator gave us an unfinished earth; there are 
swamps to drain, lake borders to beautify, 
deserts to irrigate, and marble quarries to 
transform into temples and statues. As He 
made a garden, but put Adam in it to tend it, 
so He put the race upon earth to be its gar- 
dener and bring all its rough readiness into 
complete order. This is what supplies the 
legitimate work of man, and this kind of work 
is never irksome when undertaken merely for 
its own sake. That we should toil for bread 
and clothes, doing our stint merely for wages 
from another man, was not the original design, 

343 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

and that sort of labor is very properly called 
a '*curse/' We are to labor as the child 
plays, for the delight of it. One who grasps 
the meaning of the tendencies of human prog- 
ress can already see how Christ is redeeming 
us from this curse-work. For Christ's influ- 
ence produces civilization, civilization makes 
machinery, and more and more is machinery 
taking all the manual labor, the lifting and 
drudgery, away from human hands; and we 
may confidently expect that by and by ma- 
chines shall do all the disagreeable slaving, 
leaving men to be simply the superintendents 
directing the tireless potencies of steam, elec- 
tricity, and heat.^ With a proper system of 
distributing wealth, all the products of the 
earth necessary to sustain the life of the race 
in abundance, and even luxury, could be 
raised by a few persons, and by their working 
in an agreeable m^anner, while the rest of 
mankind could pursue higher aims, such as 
the adornment of the planet. Thus is Christ 
**taking away our curse" and making of the 
earth a play-ground; for play differs from 
work in this, that play is exertion undertaken 
solely for the pleasure of it,^ while work is 
exertion which we do not like, undertaken for 
the sake of securing by it a remoter pleasur- 

' See Bulwer's "The Coming Race." 
2 Bushnell, "Work and Play." 

344 



LIFE IN THE HEAVENS 

able end. And therefore may we not suppose 
that God brings His sons into existence, in 
order that in them He may see Himself 
reflected (for a loving Being must desire to be 
loved), and calls the race to the divine 
employment of being His partner in creation, 
going forth through all the worlds of the 
heavens to add the finishing touches of habit- 
able and homelike beauty and order to the 
spheres that He has made? And can man 
aspire to a higher destiny than thus to lay 
his hands upon the universe God has prepared 
for him, and looking up into the unclouded 
face of his Maker, to say, '*My Father work- 
eth hitherto, and I work"? 

Secondly, an immortal spirit like man must 
have something that shall eternally occupy 
his intellect. As the body finds its health 
and pleasure in activity, so must the mind 
have its field and task. Therefore has the 
Father put within His marvelous creation 
rich and toothsome laws and problems in the 
investigation of which the mind finds its pur- 
est delight. The observation of nature, the 
study of the sciences, is fit to be the perma- 
nent occupation of the life to come. To 
many this may seem quite uninviting, for they 
conceive scientific research to be dry and 
hard. But the mere drudgery of science, the 
classifying and compiling, is not minded by 

345 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

those who have tasted the intoxicating cup 
of real scientific work. It is the most entran- 
cing and prophetic of all callings. For, as 
Bushnell says, "we find that a certain capa- 
city of elevation or poetic ardor is the most 
fruitful source of scientific discovery; for 
what are the laws of science but the ideas of 
God — those regulative types of thought by 
which God created, moves, and rules the 
world?*' Thus will we be engaged through- 
out the endless ages in the only mental occu- 
pation which we can imagine to go on in 
increasing delight witjiout end ; in stretching 
out our minds upon the glorious framework 
of creation, its laws, its harmonies, and its 
relations, exclaiming in sacred rapture to Him 
who ever abides in us, *'0 God, I think Thy 
thoughts after Thee!" 

We should not suppose our employ here- 
after to consist only in singing psalms and 
shouting hallelujahs. The common notion 
that in heaven we shall be engaged in purely 
religious exercises all the time is not an agree- 
able one, simply because man was not intended 
for this. Our natures are so made that a 
place '*where congregations ne'er break up 
and Sabbaths have no end'* does not attract 
us. Yet many, under the impression that 
this is to be our sole future occupation, strive 
to live that sort of life here. From much 

346 



LIFE IN THE HEAVENS 

religious teaching one would gather that his 
Christian life is not what God would have it 
unless, as much as his struggle for bread will 
permit, he be always engaged in singing, 
praying, testifying, listening to preaching, or 
reading the Bible. But the invariable result 
of giving one's self wholly to religious thought 
is morbidity and unhealthy spiritual life. 
Temperance is the rule, also, in religion. 
While some may be called upon to give them- 
selves almost wholly to religious exercises, 
such is not the normal life. In emergencies, 
upon certain occasions, it may behoove us to 
lay aside all secular matters and concentrate 
ourselves upon church work. But that is not 
the typical Christian life. We are created to 
plow, to sow, to reap, to build, to explore, 
to study, to laugh, and to play. The right 
Christian life consists in doing these things 
like children of God, and not like cats and 
dogs. Religion, in fine, is the spirit in which 
work is to be done; it is not a work to be 
done. It is not something to do, it is the 
way in which we are to do all things. Reli- 
gion is the tune; ** earthly" business is the 
words. When men have lost the tune or are 
off the key, it is proper enough that some of 
us should devote ourselves wholly to setting 
them right; but the Father never intended the 
race to be finally forever humming **songs 

347 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

I without words.*' The most wholesome kind 

' of Christianity is not that of priests, preach- 

ers, and deaconesses, but that of housewives, 
merchants, artists, students, and especially 
§/ , j little children. Excessive religiosity is as 

dangerous as any other kind of excess and is 
as fruitful as any in insanity. 
/> Engaged thus in the everlasting career that 

shall continually employ the faculties of the 
mind and of whatever body the spirit may 
I take unto itself, we must not forget that such 

I a being will ascend ever higher in development} 

] If man is ^'fearfully and wonderfully made" 

j now, what will he be when endless time has 

' removed every barrier to his progress? After 

\ ten thousand years of unimpeded develop- 

ment the meanest boor will become as much 
more magnificent in his personality than a 
Goethe here, as such a Goethe living now 
would be above an African slave. What 
amazing possibilities does eternity open be- 
fore the mind! How rich may it become in 
wisdom and knowledge, how skilled in the 
perception of the truth! What possibilities of 
artistic attainment are also thus disclosed! 
Art also shall be an employment, for it is the 
representation and interpretation of the works 
of God. Doubtless the germs of all that any 
man has become lurk in each soul of the 

1 Bushnell, ''The Power of an Endless Life.*' 



LIFE IN THE HEAVENS 

whole race. Given unending time, the basest 
and lowliest men may outstrip Beethoven and 
Michael Angelo; playing also upon what new 
instruments and painting with what new col- 
ors! Well might the Psalmist cry, *'I said, 
ye are gods!'* and John, **It doth not yet 
appear what we shall be!*' And who knows 
but that Michael and Gabriel, the angels and 
archangels, the seraphim and cherubim, are 
but human souls elevated by the orderly de- 
velopment of eternity's long years to that 
supernal dignity and radiance wherein they 
stand? Endow a human being with eternity, 
and what is not possible? May we not hope 
that at last God will look upon our own full- 
grown souls, glorious with His glory, reflect- 
ing back the very fullness of His love and 
beauty, and thrill with gratitude and pride 
because of His children? *'He shall see the 
travail of His soul and be satisfied." 

If it be objected that Tellus is too small a 
planet to be given such supreme significance, 
and that this view is but reviving the fallacy 
of the ancients that earth was the center about 
which all the heavenly host stands; it may be 
answered that making the earth to be the cen- 
ter of spiritual interest for the universal peo- 
ple does not in any degree imply that it is the 
physical center of the universe ; and again that 
God surely must begin somewhere if He is to 

349 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

people His spheres at all, and it is as reason- 
able to suppose He begins at Tellus as at any- 
other planet or star. 

As to the matter of time, God is in no 
hurry ; it is only man who frets and is impa- 
tient; and what matter if it be many millions 
of years before all the habitable worlds are 
full; what matter, indeed, if they never be 
full at all, many being reserved as parks or 
playgrounds, many others being central suns 
merely to give light and heat to their sur- 
rounding populated planets, others still, being 
like our moon, worlds grown old, and others 
being worlds yet in process of preparation? 
Geologists tell us the earth is yet young, so 
that for millenniums yet to come it will con- 
tinue to send forth these colonies out into 
*'the republic of God'* in the heavens. 

There is another singular way in which 
this theory sheds light upon the coherence of 
the Christian scheme of thought. Has it not 
always seemed a little strange that the 
Almighty should go to so much pains to save 
this little world; that He should send His 
"only begotten Son'* to this planet? For, if 
other worlds be peopled, it is not unlikely 
that similar demands would be made upon 
His love by them. And why is the man 
Christ Jesus called His only begotten Son? 
Is there any other hypothesis than the one 

350 



LIFE IN THE HEAVENS 

here suggested that makes this reasonable? 
But if the other worlds be filled with the hu- 
manity of this, if they all be linked together 
as one human stock, if by incarnating Him- 
self into this race He became one with the 
whole population of the heavens, then our idea 
of the incarnation is not out of proportion. 
At once He entered into and identified Him- 
self with His whole people. 

Touching this is another fact, that while 
Jesus was *'very man*' during His life, He is 
also explicitly described as still remaining a 
man after His resurrection. After rising 
from the grave He showed Himself to His 
disciples; He urged them to feel of His 
hands and side, saying, **Hath a ghost flesh 
and blood?" for they thought He might be an 
apparition. And He ate fish and honeycomb. 
And that His life continued to be the same, 
and that death was simply nothing at ally ex- 
cept a change in the bodily substance, is 
shown by His still expounding the Scriptures 
on the way to Emmaus, just as He did in His 
earthly life, and by His taking up the thread 
of His relations with Peter where it had been 
dropped upon the fatal night when the impul- 
sive apostle denied Him, and asking thrice, 
"Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me?" so 
that His whole personality thus still persists. 
Carried to its logical conclusion, what does 

351 



f-f 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 

this mean? It means that God's identity 
with this race is more than a figure of speech. 
If Christ is very man, God is very man. If 
God is man, man is of God. Humanity is 
thus elevated to most imperial significance. 
We begin to get glimpses of what Christ 
meant when He prayed the Father: *'As 
Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that 
they also may be one in Us. And the glory 
which Thou gavest Me I have given them; 
that they may be one even as We are one ; I 
in them and Thou in Me." Thus did He lift 
in intercessory prayer that face which bright- 
ens the air of Paradise; thus did He raise 
those arms, by which also He made the 
worlds, and bind together in indissoluble and 
awful unity (the plain meaning of whose 
words we hardly dare believe), the Father, the 
Son, and the many sons, all by the Eternal 
Spirit. 

Now, if we be sons, all things are ours. 
Look, therefore, to the star-sown deeps, filled 
with worlds each as glorious as this, and know 
that they are yours, all yours, by direct 
inheritance from your Father! Is this too 
great? To say so is to misapprehend a human 
soul. Instead of being too great, it is the 
only idea that has ever been large enough to 
measure up to the wants and possibilities of 
man. You think you can fill a man! There 

352 



LIFE IN THE HEAVENS 

is a hungry, ragged street urchin ; try to fill 
him; he wants — a dinner. Give him dinner 
and breakfast and supper, and assure him of 
these every day; is he satisfied? No; now 
he wants clothes, then a little knowledge, 
then more knowledge, then to rule his ward, 
then he wants a whole nation, then the world 
itself; and thus go on with that insatiate 
soul, smitten with eternity-hunger, pouring 
into it lands, houses, oceans, continents, hon- 
ors, riches, pleasures; and what do you get 
from him? A distressed cry for more.^ For 
you have tried to fill a soul with one planet 
when it will hold galaxies. The human spirit 
alone can contain and use a universe, and 
therefore has the God who made the universe 
given it to the only being that would know 
what to do with it. 

It may not be trivial to remark also that 
Christ's asseveration, **In the resurrection 
they neither marry nor are given in marriage, ' ' ^ 
acquires a cogency from the theory here pro- 
posed that it gains from no other hypothesis. 
Ours alone, then, is the generative planet. 
The function of physical reproduction not 
only supplies inhabitants for the universe, but 
it lays the foundation for the family, and intro- 
duces man to the divine feeling of love, 
which, purged from all fleshly grossness (be- 

» Carlyle, " Sartor Resartus." « Matt. xxii. 30. 

353 



t'l 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 



j 'm>\ 



cause there is to be no reproduction here- 
after), is the tie among heavenly intelligences. 
To incorporate Himself into the race the 
Father must needs come to the reproductive 
planet. 

Why, then, is it either useless or sacrile- 
gious to endeavor to modify our ideas of the 
Scriptures' meaning to conform to the known 
facts science has discovered? The Bible 
glows with a new light when it is interpreted 
by the best results of investigation. The 
forms of thought concerning a future life that 
once enraptured saints on earth several hun- 
dred years ago, are not attractive to an intel- 
ligent man now, because they do not fit what 
he knows to be the construction of nature. 
Abandoning all the pure, divine joys of art 
and science and creative work, to dwell for- 
ever in one cubical city crowded with souls, 
and there to be occupied entirely in religious 
services, all this appeals not to a wholesome, 
normal man, but only to a sickly instinct 
reveling in a literalistic interpretation which 
is as distorted as it is unsound. 

The spacious firmament has always been 
the most prophetic spectacle the Creator has 
revealed to men. It thrilled the ancients, it 
humbled Immanuel Kant, it convinced Napo- 
leon of God. It has peculiarly lifted the lives 
of men, as though some strange force in it 

354 



LIFE IN THE HEAVENS 

drew humanity upward, away from their fellow- 
animals, as though its silent voice touched that 
in them which other creatures do not possess. 
Can it be pure absurdity to suppose that the 
sympathy and yearning of celestial humanities 
form no insignificant part of the force that 
makes the sky the majestic, yet mute, herald 
of Almighty God? 

"The heavens declare the glory of God: 
And the firmament showeth his handiwork. 
Day unto day uttereth speech, 
And night unto night showeth knowledge. 
They have no speech nor language, 
Yet without these is their voice heard. 
Their influence is gone out through all the world: 
And their words to the end of the world." ^ 

Best of all, when we view the heavens as 
our destination, we get a better grasp of the 
home idea of the life to come. Thus are we 
not all to be huddled into one great city 
where the endearing and domestic affections 
are to be swallowed up in religious ardor. 
Each man goes to his own people. **I go to 
prepare a place for you," said Christ.^ If He 
was merely returning to that abode of angels 
from whence He came, how could He be said 
to be preparing a place? for that was already 
prepared. But He went to make ready a par- 
ticular place for them especially, as He pre- 

» Ps. xix. margin. * John xiv. 2. 

355 



THE RELIGION OF TO-MORROW 



pares other places for others. Even Judas 
' *went to his own place. " ^ The Bible's terms 
do not require us to think of but one place 
for all. '*In My Father's house are many 



mansions." 



Coming into this world we find a place pre- 
pared; a mother's breast whereon to lean, 
and a father's willing hands to shield and 
help us.^ Going into that world it is not out 
of reason to presume that there, also, those 
departed loved ones, bright with the incre- 
ment of divine days and years of growth, shall 
meet us with smiles, welcome us into some 
dear home^ and instruct our feeble understand- 
ings, our wayward will, and our undisciplined 
heart in the new life. Home is the sweetest 
of words. Because one place is peculiarly 
mine argues not that all other places are 
inferior; that some friends are especially my 
own only makes me the more charitable to 
strangers. Yonder, too, is a home — not, like 
this one, a moving tent, no continuing city, 
but a house eternal in the heavens. 

The men of old peopled the firmament with 
constellations, fantastic forms of departed 
heroes; was this a foreshadowing hint of the 
truth that the exaltation we feel when we 
stand beneath the starry dome is not only the 
natural wonder at something vast and great, 

» Acts i. 25. * Clarke. 



LIFE IN THE HEAVENS 

but also the yearning of our hearts in response 
to the down-shining eyes of them 

" That we have loved long since, 
And lost awhile" ? 

Go forth, therefore, beneath the unmeasured 
deeps of heaven, and from thence drink in 
The Personal Influence of God, and of all 
saints. It is infinitely tender and consoling 
to imagine that perhaps even now as you 
stand there gazing upward at the friendly 
stars that wink at you in strange yet familiar 
beckonings, upon some one of them a little 
colony of emigrants, who sailed from the port 
of death and took with them all the bright- 
ness and zest of life, stand waiting for you. 
Even now, mayhap, your eyes behold the 
''home, sweet home,*' where shall be restored 
to you 

"The touch of a vanished hand 
And the sound of a voice that is still.** 



357 



/' ! 



SUGGESTIONS 

The imaginations touching the future life may be 
helpful, provided we remember they are imagina- 
tions. 

The time is ripe for a new Dante and a new Mil- 
ton, who shall read the imagery of the Bible in the 
light of modern information. 

The Bible is a fixed book, but fixed before us, not 
behind us. 

Every scientific discovery is a new parable of God. 

The pictures of heaven that helped the mediaeval 
saint may hinder us. 

The universe is none too fine nor great for the sons 
of God. 

Christ takes away the curse of work thus: Chris- 
tianity makes civilization, civilization makes machin- 
ery and altruism, machinery does the drudgery, and 
altruism will distribute the fruits with justice. 

An eternal spirit must have an eternal task. 

An eternal intellect must have eternal problems. 

Religion is not a work to be done, it is the way in 
which work is to be done. 

Religion is the tune, earthly business is the words. 

With eternity, the meanest boor may become an 
archangel. 

Perhaps at last God may be proud of us. 

God values us, not for what we are, but for what He 
intends to make of us. 

By the incarnation God identified Himself with the 
population of the universe. 

Christ was "very man'*; He is still "very man"; 
and Christ is "the fullness of the Godhead bodily"; 
from these premises we hardly dare draw the con- 
clusion. 



APPENDIX 

Extract from Whately, "On the Abolition of the 

Law" 

(See note i, p. 54.) 



APPENDIX 

Extract from Whately's Essay, **On the Abolition 
of the Law," in ** Difficulties in the Writings of 
Saint Paul," p. 148. 

The simplest and clearest way, then, .of stat- 
ing the case with respect to the present ques- 
tion is, to lay down, on the one hand, that 
the Mosaic law was limited both to the nation 
of Israelites and to the period before the Gos- 
pel ; but, on the other hand, that the natural 
principles of morality, which (among other 
things) it inculcates, are from their own char- 
acter of universal obligation — that is, on the 
one hand, *'no Christian man (as our article 
expresses it) is free from the observance of 
those commandments which are called 
moral," so, on the other hand, it is not he- 
cause they are commandments of the Mosaic 
law that he is bound to obey them, but be- 
cause they are moral. Indeed, there are 
numerous precepts in the laws, for instance, of 
Solon and Mahomet, from a conformity to 
which no Christian can pretend to exemption; 
yet, though we are bound to practice alms- 
giving and several other duties there enjoined, 
and to abstain from murder, for instance, 
and false-witness — which these law-givers for- 
bid — no one would say that a part of the 

361 



APPENDIX 

Koran is binding on Christians since their 
conduct is determined, not by the authority 
of the Koran, but by the nature of the case. 
If men are taught to regard the Mosaic law 
(with the exception of the civil and cere- 
monial ordinances) as their appointed rule of 
life, they will be disposed to lower the stand- 
ard of Christian morality by contenting them- 
selves with a literal adherence to the express com- 
mands of that law; or, at least, merely to 
enlarge that code by the addition of such pre- 
cise moral precepts as they find distinctly 
enacted in the New Testament Now this 
was very far from being the apostle's view of 
the Christian life. Not only does the Gospel 
require a morality in many respects higher 
and more perfect in itself than the law, but 
it places morality universally on higher 
grounds. Instead of precise rules^ it furnishes 
sublime principles of conduct, leaving the 
Christian to apply these, according to his own 
discretion in each case that may arise, and 
thus to be **a law unto himself.'* Gratitude 
for the redeeming love of God in Christ, with 
mingled veneration and affection for the per- 
son of our great Master, and an exalted emu- 
lation, leading us to tread in His steps; an 
ardent longing to behold His glories, and to 
enjoy His presence in the world to come, 
with an earnest effort to prepare for that 
better world; love toward our brethren for 
His sake who died for us and them; and, 
above all, the thought that the Christian is a 
part of **the temple of the Holy Ghost,*' who 
dwelleth in the church, even the Spirit of 
Christ, without which we are none of His, a 

362 



APPENDIX . 

temple which we are bound to keep unde- 
filed — these, and siich as these, are the Gos- 
pel principles of morality, into a conformity 
with which the Christian is to fashion his 
heart and his life ; and they are such princi- 
ples as the Mosaic dispensation could not 
furnish. The Israelites, as not only living 
under a revelation which had but a shadow of 
the good things of the Gospel, but also as a 
dull and gross-minded and imperfectly civi- 
lized people, in a condition corresponding to 
that of childhood, were in few things left to 
their own moral discretion, but were furnished 
with precise rules in most points of conduct. 
These answered to the exact regulations 
under which children are necessarily placed, 
and which are gradually relaxed as they ad- 
vance toward maturity — not at all on the 
ground that good conduct is less required of 
men than of children ; but they are expected 
to be more capable of regulating their own 
conduct by their own discretion, and of acting 
upon principle. 

When, then, the Mosaic code was abolished, 
we find no other system of rules substituted 
in its place. Our Lord and His apostles en- 
forced such duties as were the most liable to 
be neglected, corrected some prevailing 
errors, gave some particular directions which 
particular occasions called for, but laid down 
no set of rules for the conduct of a Christian. 
They laid down Christian /rZ/^^z/Z^i' instead; 
they sought to implant Christian dispositions. 
And this is the more remarkable inasmuch 
as we may be sure, from the nature of man, 
that precise regulations, even though some- 

363 



APPENDIX 

what tedious to learn and burdensome to 
observe, would have been highly acceptable 
to their converts. Hardly any restraint is so 
irksome to man — that is, to '*the natural 
man** — as to be left to his own discretion, yet 
still required to regulate his conduct accord- 
ing to certain principles, and to steer his 
course through the intricate channels of life, 
with a constant, vigilant exercise of his moral 
judgment. It is much more agreeable to hu- 
man indolence (though at first sight the con- 
trary might be supposed) to have a complete 
system of laws laid down, which are to be 
observed according to the letter, not to the 
spirit, and which, as long as a man adheres 
to them, afford both a consolatory assurance 
of safety and an unrestrained liberty as to 
every point not determined by them, than to 
be called upon for incessant watchfulness, 
careful and candid self-examination, and studi- 
ous cultivation of certain moral dispositions. 
Accordingly, most, if not all systems of 
man*s devising (whether corruptions of Chris- 
tianity or built on any other foundations) will 
be found, even in what appear their most rigid 
enactments, to be accommodated to this ten- 
dency of the human heart. When Mahomet, 
for instance, enjoined on his disciples a strict 
fast during a certain period, and an entire 
abstinence from wine and from games of 
chance, and the devotion of a precise portion 
of their property to the poor, leaving them at 
liberty generally to follow their own sensual 
and worldly inclinations, he imposed a far 
less severe task on them than if he had 
required them constantly to control their ap- 

3^4 



APPENDIX 

petites and passions, to repress covetousness, 
and to be uniformly temperate, charitable, 
and heavenly-minded. And had Paul been 
(as a false teacher always will be) disposed 
to comply with the expectation and wishes 
which his disciples would naturally form, he 
would doubtless have referred them to some 
part of the Mosaic law as their standard of 
morality, or would have substituted some 
other system of rules in its place. Indeed, 
there is strong reason to think (especially 
from what we find in i Corinthians) that some- 
thing of this nature had actually been desired 
of him. He seems to have been applied to 
for more precise rules than he was willing to 
give, particularly as to the lawfulness of going 
to idol feasts, and as to several points relative 
to marriage and celibacy — concerning which 
and other matters he gives briefly such direc- 
tions as the occasion rendered indispensable, 
but breaks off into exhortations to **use this 
world as not abusing it,** and speedily recurs 
to the general description of the Christian 
character and the inculcation of Christian prin- 
ciples. He will not be induced to enter into 
minute details of things forbidden and per- 
mitted, enjoined and dispensed with; and 
even when most occupied in repelling the 
suspicion that Gospel liberty exempts the 
Christian from moral obligation, instead of 
retaining or framing anew any system of pro- 
hibitions and injunctions, he urges upon his 
hearers the very consideration of their being 
exempt from any such childish trammels as a 
reason for their aiming at a more perfect 
holiness of life on pure and more generous 

36s 



t 



APPENDIX 

motives. **Sin," he says, ** shall not have 
dominion over you; for ye are not under the 
law, but under grace'' ; and he perpetually 
incites them to walk '*worthy of their voca- 
tion/' on the ground of their being '* bought 
with a price," and bound to **live unto Him 
who died for them"; ''as risen with Christ" 
to a new life of holiness, exhorted to "set 
their affections on things above, not on things 
on the earth"; as ''living sacrifices" to God; 
ij as "the temple of Holy Ghost," called upon 

to keep God's dwelling-place undefiled, and 
\ to abound in all "the fruits of the Spirit"; 

f and as "being delivered from the law, that 

\ we should serve in newness of the spirit, and 

' not in the oldness of the letter." 

He who seeks, then — as many are disposed 
to do — either in the Old Testament or in the 
New for a precise code of laws by which to 
regulate his conduct, mistakes the character 
of our religion. It is indeed an error, and a 
ruinous one, to think that we may "continue 
in sin because we are not under the law but 
under grace"; but it is also an error, and a 
far commoner one, to inquire of the Scrip- 
tures, in each case that may occur, what we 
are strictly bound to do or to abstain from, 
and to feel secure as long as we transgress no 
distinct commandment But he who seeks 
with sincerity for Christian principles will not 
fail to find them. If we endeavor, through 
• . the aid of the Holy Spirit, to trace on our own 

heart the delineation of the Christian charac- 
ter which the Scriptures present, and to con- 
form all our actions and words and thoughts 
to that character, our Heavenly Teacher will 

366 



APPENDIX 

enable us to '*have a right judgment in all 
things"; and we shall be '*led by the Spirit*' 
of Christ to follow His steps, and to "purify 
ourselves even as He is pure/* that "when 
He shall appear we may be made like unto 
Him, and may behold Him as He is.** 



367 



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